An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Pocke

by Friedrich Kluge

Pocke, feminine, ‘pock,’ properly a Low German word, unknown in this form to Middle High German and Old High German; compare the equivalent Dutch pok, for which we should have expected Pfoche in High German, and in fact the dialects preserve this form. Allied to Anglo-Saxon pocc, English pock. The cognates seem to be based on a Teutonic root puh, ‘to swell,’ which appears also in Anglo-Saxon pohha, poca, English poke and pocket.