[Of uncertain origin; the ending -ock is app. diminutive, as in puttock, etc.] A name applied locally to various sea-birds: in the Shetland Islands, to the Arctic Tern; elsewhere to the Kittiwake, to the young of the Common Gull, and to the Common Guillemot.
1674. Ray, Collect, Words, Water Fowl, 94. The Tarrock: Cornub: Larus cinereus Bellonii. Ibid. (1678), Willughby’s Ornith., 346. Bellonius his ash-coloured Gull, called in Cornwal, Tarrock.
1768. Pennant, Zool., II. 424. Linnæus … makes this species [winter mew] synonymous with the Larus tridactylus or Tarrock. Ibid. (1771), Tour Scot. in 1769, 36. Kittiwakes, or Tarrocks.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VI. 79. It is … the tarrock, and the terne, that venture to these dreadful retreats, and claim an undisturbed possession.
1833. G. Montagu’s Ornith. Dict., 505. Tarrock, a name for the Gull in its immature plumage. Ibid., 508. Common Tern, Sterna hirundo. Provincial.… Tarrock, or Tarret.
1880. J. Skelton, Crookit Meg, iv. 48. I promised to get a tarrock’s wing for Eppie.
