Obs. [Of uncertain origin; if not f. BULLY sb.1 + ROCK, the form and some of the senses must be due to popular etymology. Cf. bully-rake in BULLY sb.1 5.]
1. = BULLY sb.1 1; jolly comrade, boon companion.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., I. iii. 2. What saies my Bully Rooke?
1697. Praise of Yorksh. Ale. My Bully Rocks, I’ve been experienced long In most of Liquors.
2. = BULLY sb.1 3; a bravo, hired ruffian. (In quot. 1673 app. a bully who is also a rook or sharper.)
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. liv. Ye Bully-rocks, And rogues.
1673. Char. Coffee House, in Harl. Misc. (1810), I. 469. The bully-rook makes it his bubbling pond, where he angles for fops.
1685. Cotton, trans. Montaigne, III. 7. It properly belongs to Kings only to … laugh at those bully-rocks.
1827. Carlyle, Germ. Romance, III. 44. A stout swordsman and hector as spiritual relative and bully-rock so to speak.
