rocket
n. countablen. a vehicle or device that moves very fast by shooting fire and gas out of its back. You use it to travel into space or as a powerful weapon.
n. a cylindrical projectile that is propelled to high speeds by the reaction to the expulsion of fast-moving exhaust gases. Often used in the context of space exploration or as a self-propelled military weapon.
The rocket launched into space this morning.
Engineers spent years designing the rocket to ensure it could carry the heavy satellite into the correct orbit.
The development of liquid-fueled rocket technology during the mid-twentieth century fundamentally altered the landscape of both international diplomacy and scientific exploration.
From Italian rocchetta, from Old Italian rocchetto (“rocket”, literally “a bobbin”), diminutive of rocca (“a distaff”), from Lombardic rocko (“spinning wheel”), from Proto-West Germanic rokkō, from Proto-Germanic rukkô (“a distaff, a staff with flax fibres tied loosely to it, used in spinning thread”). Cognate with Old High German rocco, rocko, roccho, rocho ("a distaff"; > German Rocken (“a distaff”)), Swedish rock (“a distaff”), Icelandic rokkur (“a distaff”), Middle English rocke (“a distaff”). More at rock⁴. For the meaning development, compare fuselage, ultimately from Latin fūsus (“spindle, spinning wheel”).
Borrowed from French roquette, from Italian ruchetta, diminutive of ruca, from Latin eruca. Cognate to arugula, rucola, eruca, roquette.