A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Hocket

by George Grove

HOCKET. A term which occurs in old English writers on music, beginning with De Haudlo (1326), for passages which were truncated or mangled, or a combination of notes and pauses. The term puzzles Sir John Hawkins (Hist. chap. 53), but the late Mr. Chorley used ingeniously to explain it as a corruption of hocquet, a hiccup, and signifying a syncopation. [See Ochetto.]

[ G. ]