Meanings
plural chanticleers
- archaicliteraryA domestic rooster or cock, especially in fables and fairy tales.
It is happily some particular sense that unto cockes or chanticleares discovereth the morning and midnight houre, and moveth them to crow[…].
1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC1 more example
When I did hear / The motley fool, thus moral on the time, / My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, / That fools should be so deep-contemplative[…].
c. 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 2, scene 7
present singular third person chanticleers · participle present chanticleering · participle past chanticleered · past chanticleered
- To make the crowing sound of a cock.
- To crow in exultation.
Origin
- Old FrenchChantecler
- Middle EnglishChauntecleer
- Englishchanticleer
] From Middle English Chauntecleer, from Old French Chantecler (modern French Chanteclair), the proper name of the cock in the literary cycle of Reynard the Fox, that also gave origin to chantecler, the name of a chicken breed; from chanter (“to sing, to crow”) + cler (“clear, clearly”). Attested in English since 1250–1300.
More words from Middle English, Old French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
chanticleer. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chanticleer
“chanticleer.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chanticleer. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “chanticleer,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chanticleer.
Source: chanticleer on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.