Obs. Also 5 fukke, 6 fuck(e, fouke. [Proximate source uncertain; the word, with such variety of application as is not uncommonly found in nautical terms (cf., e.g., MIZEN), occurs in many mod. European langs.: F. foc jib; Du. fok (MDu. fokke) foremast; Ger. fock(e, Sw. fock, Da. fok fore-sail. The origin is usually sought in ON. fok, action of driving, f. root of fiúka to drive; possibly the nautical word was originally a shortening of various compounds of this.] Some kind of sail; ? a jib, a stay-sail (but prob. used loosely in quots.). Also in Comb. fukmast (in quot. 1598 = ‘foremast’), fuksail, fuksheet.
1465. Mann. & Househ. Exp. (Roxb.), 200. Item, my mastyr paid for a ffukke maste, iiij.s. iiij.d.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot. (1858), I. 20. Tha salit fast … befoir the wynd With fuksaill, topsaill, manesall, musall, and blynd. Ibid., 100. It is … Sax houris saling bayth with fuk and blind.
1568. Satir. Poems Reform., xlvi. 30. Plum weill the grund quhat evir ȝe doo, Haill on the fukscheit and the blind.
1598. W. Phillips, trans. Linschoten, I. 165. The chiefe Boteson hath … gouernement ouer the Fouke mast, and the fore sayles.
transf. 1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, xiv. 74. So mony fillok with fuck sailis Within this land was nevir hard nor sene.
a. 1529. Skelton, Col. Cloute, 399.
| And set up theyr fucke sayles, | |
| To catch wynde with their ventales. |
