Etymology

cockcrow

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Today it means: The time of day at which the first crow of a cockerel is heard; dawn or daybreak; first light. Full definition →

Middle English cok crowe ← Old English hancrǣd
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The story

  1. Old English · derived fromhancrǣd“cockcrow, dawn”
  2. Middle English · inherited fromcok crowe
  3. English todaycockcrow

From Middle English cok crowe (also as cokkes crowe), equivalent to cock + crow. Likely a suppletive variation of Old English hancrǣd (“cockcrow, dawn”, literally “cock-crowing”), from hana (“cock, rooster”) + crǣd (“crowing”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.