Etymology: < Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French roche rock n.¹, and thus etymologically a doublet of rock n.¹ With sense 4 compare post-classical Latin rocea roche alum (1476 in a British source); this sense is apparently only paralleled later in French (1690 as simplex, although compare the Romance forms cited at rock alum n.). Compare earlier stanroche at stonerock n. β. forms.Attested earlier in place names, as Roch, Northumberland (1164, now Rock), La Roche, Cornwall (1201; now Roche), Roche, West Riding, Yorkshire (1253; 1147 as Rupe; now Roche Abbey), and also in surnames, as Gislebertus de la Roche (1185), Agnet. de la Roche (1201), etc., although it is uncertain whether these reflect the Anglo-Norman or the Middle English word (the following examples certainly reflect the Anglo-Norman word: John de Roches (1086), Lucas des Roches (1249), both associated with Les Roches, Seine-Inférieure).

Etymology: Origin uncertain. Probably a transmission error for, or perhaps shortened < , Rochelle n. Although the place name Roche is common in France (compare Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French roche roche n.¹), no wine from places so called is recorded in dictionaries or corpora of French.

Etymology: < the name of Édouard Albert Roche (1820–83), French mathematician, whose paper ‘Mémoire sur la figure d'une masse fluide, soumise à l'attraction d'un point éloigné’ was published in Acad. des Sci. et Lettres de Montpellier: Mém. de la Section des Sci. (1849) 1 243.

Etymology: Origin uncertain. Perhaps a variant of either rache v. or ratch v.¹, although the phonology is difficult to explain. Perhaps compare β. forms at rich v.², although the meanings recorded in English are not a close match.

Etymology: < roche n.¹ With sense 2 compare earlier roching n. and roched petre n. at roched adj. Compare roach n.² N.E.D. (1909) gives the pronunciation as (rō^utʃ) /rəʊtʃ/.