Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US campus/teen) a general term of approval.

1986		Eble Campus Sl. Oct.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 301: [He] was overcome by her rocking good looks.
2000		M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 9: ‘Yeah man, rocking!’ he mumbled to himself.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 82: I like the answers as usual. You keep shit rockin’.

(orig. US) to proceed, to go on with life in one’s usual manner.

1906		A. Adams ‘The Double Trail’ in Cattle Brands 🌐 Early in the summer of ’78 we were rocking along [...] going up the old Chisholm trail in the Indian Territory.
1929		C. McKay Banjo 9: The boys rocked slowly along up to Joliette.
1956		J. Thompson ‘Flaw in the System’ in Fireworks (1988) 135: The system rocked along, permitting no errors, working perfectly.
2003		Guardian 15 Apr. 🌐 However if that’s the case, how come the Europeans are rocking along just fine, not starving, not living in cardboard boxes and not apparently gagging to imitate our habits?

see separate entry.

1. (Aus.) to intensify, to accelerate; esp. in the phr. rock it in! hurry up! make it snappy!

1901		Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA) 20 Jan. 1/6: His affected doubts [...] would be very quickly dispelled if he could see some of the letters that have been received, at this office [...] ‘Only one fault about it,’ writes one approving reader, ‘it ought to have been written months ago.’ ‘Rock it in,’ remarks another.
1914		Western Mail (Perth) 5 June 44/1: He has a gentle way of saying, 'Come here, my little chickenlet you can’t be feeling well,’ and then, don’t he rock it in.
1917		Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA) 2 Sept. 4/8: The argument in the thrummer-beer bar was thick and, fast. The returned soldier was rocking it in hot and heavy to a mob of racecourse vermin.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1955		J. Morrison Black Cargo 228: Rock it in, Arthur! You’ll do us—.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 62: Come on, Charlie, let’s rock it in — I gotta go kill a snake.

2. (Aus.) to eat heartily.

1914

Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Aug. 26/3: He shuffled into the bar, and began to rock into the free lunch.

3. (S.Afr., also rock over, rock up) to arrive without prior announcement or appointment, to ‘roll up’.

1974		informant in DSAE (1996) (rock up).
1975		‘Blossom’ in Darling 12 Feb. 119: There by the camping site the day we rock in, it’s 95 in the shade. [Ibid.] 12 Apr. 95: Seems he rocks over from Vredies to challenge the local pinball boks [DSAE].
1979		‘Blossom’ in Darling 16 May 131: When you rock inside there’s these two more yooge settees covered with about a million cushuns [DSAE].
1982		P. Slabolepszy Sat. Night at the Palace (1985) 70: If the cops rock up here now —.
1984		P. Slabolepszy ‘Over the Hill’ in Mooi Street (1994) 73: By the time you rock up I’ll have them ticking.
1990		P. Hotz Muzukuru 9: If I’d rocked up in Burg with that thing my wife would’ve thrown us both out.
1996		CyberBraai Lex. at www.matriots.com 🌐 ROCK UP: To rock up some place is to just sort of arrive. You don’t make an appointment or tell anyone you are coming – you just rock up.
2012		G. Johnstone ‘No Through Road’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Duy rocks up to pick me up in this car.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 231: I can’t exactly rock up to his front door and demand a buccal swab.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 51: ‘Captain Cook [...] rocked up with the First Fleet’.

to fight.

1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 374: Rock it into him Darkey — you got him now!
1957		Laurents & Sondheim West Side Story I viii: We’re gonna rock it tonight, [...] They’re gonna get it tonight; / The more they turn it on, the harder they’ll fall!

1. (Aus./N.Z.) to boast.

1949

L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 8: Aw right, aw right [...] You got me. Don’t rock it in.

2. (Aus./N.Z.) to tease.

1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 July 4/5: The ‘Bulletin’ is always rocking it into Carruthers for objecting to give up 900 square miles for a Federal Capital.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 173: Will you tell the boys for me? And they won’t rock it into me, will they?

3. (N.Z.) to upset, to hurt.

1941

F. Sargeson ‘That Summer’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 159: Ted might be no good but I could tell she was nuts on him, and it’d be rocking it into her properly to put the police on to him.

4. see rock in

(US) to act, to conduct oneself, usu. to enjoy oneself, esp. by playing or dancing to rock music.

1973		D. Essex ‘Rock On’ 🎵 Hey kid, rock and roll / Rock on, ooh my soul.
1995		Eble Campus Sl. Dec. 5: rock on – expression of approval, encouragement: ‘Rock on, man’.
2003		Guardian 28 Aug. 🌐 And who would have thought that people who wanted to read Patrick Halley’s biography of Hillary Clinton would want to rock on with The Strokes?
2005		J. Buskey Tinged Valor 81: [S]since he had literally bitten my head off just minutes earlier, I [...] allowed him to rock on.

1. (US) to enjoy oneself, esp. by playing or dancing to rock music; also attrib.

1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 185: Rock fight [...] Rock-out party A wild party.
1977		Rolling Stone 22 Sept. 30: A grown man not only lugging this huge accordion around the stage, but really rocking out with the thing!
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 30: In college slang out is the most productive particle: [...] rock out ‘play music loudly’.

2. (US black) to collapse, to be exhausted.

1972		E. Folb Urban Black Argot 144: Rock out to pass out or fall asleep from excessive marijuana or pills.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 252: rock out See flake (out).

3. of music, to go exuberantly, with abandon.

1981

in R. Palmer Deep Blues 223: ‘Rocket 88,’ with its furious drive, heavily amplified guitar, and screaming saxophone solo, rocked out.

see sense 3 above.

1. (US campus) to have sexual intercourse. [note the now clichéd description of love-making – ‘make the earth move’ – from Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)].

1989

P. Munro Sl. U.

2. (US) to beat up, to render unconscious.

1993		(con. 1975) K. Scott Monster (1994) 10: Tonight we gonna rock they world.
1994		P. Baker Blood Posse 301: We’ll rock his world when we get on the Island.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 82: Since most inmates have nothing worth protecting, they shove the lock in a sock and start swinging [...] Then rock your world.

3. (also rock someone’s shit, shake someone’s world) to amaze; to move either pos. or neg.

1991		P. Blauner Slow Motion Riot 291: ‘[A]ll these little black babies growing up to take over your world and rock your shit’.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 214: This Rosie has really rocked my world.
2001		Ishmael ‘Wanna Get in Your Pants’ 🎵 For sure she rocked my world.
2020		L. Lungaro The 3-0 270: He did one hell of a job and to say this shook my world would be an understatement.

1. see sense 3 above.

2. to arrive.

2009		T. Black Gutted 214: I rocked up to the shop.
2018		J.-P. Jordan Joys of War 16: Rock up at some checkpoint in the mountains and bivouac up until morning .

see separate entry.