cock

plural cocks

1. A male bird, especially:
   1. countableuncountableA rooster: a male gallinaceous bird, especially a male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus).

      A forlyued cok leiþ eiren in his laste elde... and ȝif any venemous worme sittiþ on broode þerevppon in þe canyculer dayes, þerof is igendrid... a cocatrice.

      a. 1398, John Trevisa, transl. Bartholomeus Anglicus as De Proprietatibus Rerum (MS BL Add. 27944), Vol. I, p. 628

   2. countableuncountableA cock pigeon.
2. countableuncountableA valve or tap for controlling flow in plumbing.

   The liquor is discharged from the cock S into liquor cans V […], from which it is transferred to the sugar in the moulds. W represents one of the traps or stairs which communicate with respective floors of the sugarhouse.

   1864, Robert Niccol, Essay on Sugar, and General Treatise on Sugar Refining

3. countableuncountableThe hammer of a firearm trigger mechanism.
4. colloquialcountableuncountablevulgarA penis.

   She doesn't see his cock, but she doesn't want to, what's the point, right?

   1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 356

   1 more example

   My cock is much bigger than yours / My cock can walk right through the door / With a feeling so pure / It's got you screaming back for more

   2005, System of a Down, “Cigaro”

   Synonyms: penis

5. countableuncountableball gamesThe circle at the end of the rink.
6. countableuncountableThe state of being cocked; an upward turn, tilt or angle.

   […] with a knowing cock of his eye to his next neighbour. Of this person little need be said.

   1823 December 23 (indicated as 1824), [Walter Scott], St Ronan’s Well. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 32

   2 more examples

   […] in 1803; my eyes transmogrified […]; my nose had lost its pretty cock, and had grown elegantly hooked; and […]

   1843, James Anthony Froude, John Tulloch, Fraser's Magazine, page 694

   One day, however, by her self-important gait, the side-way turn of her head, and the cock of her eye, as she pried into one and another nook of the garden, […]

   1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC

7. CommonwealthIrelandUKcountablederogatoryslanguncountableA stupid, obnoxious or contemptible person.
8. CommonwealthIrelandUKderogatoryslanguncountableNonsense; rubbish; a fraud.

   "You used to talk an awful lot of cock."

   1956, William Golding, Pincher Martin

   1 more example

   That Hitler's armies can't be beat is just a load of cock, / For Marshal Timoshenko's boys are pissing through von Bock […]

   2013, M. J. Trow, Swearing Like A Trooper: Rude Slang of World War Two

9. UKcountableobsoleteslanguncountableAn apocryphal story supposedly describing a public event, once sold by street hawkers.

   CURIOSITIES OF STREET LITERATURE: COMPRISING "COCKS," OR "CATCHPENNIES," A Large and Curious Assortment of STREET DROLLERIES, SQUIBS, HISTORIES, COMIC STORIES IN PROSE AND VERSE, […]

   1886, Charles Hindley, The History of the Catnach Press, page xxiii

   2 more examples

   The running patterer cares less than other street-sellers for bad weather, for if he "work" on a wet and gloomy evening, and if the work be "a cock," which is a fictitious statement or even a pretended fictitious statement, there is the less chance of any one detecting the ruse.

   1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

   This title ['Death Hunter'] refers not only to his vending accounts of all the murders that become topics of public conversation, but to his being a 'murderer' on his own account, as in the sale of 'cocks' mentioned incidentally in this narrative. If the truth be saleable , a running patterer prefers selling the truth […]

   quoted in 2018, Stephen Carver, The 19th Century Underworld: Crime, Controversy & Corruption (page 138)

10. CommonwealthIrelandUKcountableespeciallyslanguncountableA man; a fellow.

    All right, cock?

    2 more examples

    Now, in coming down here, I journeyed part of the way with a jolly old cock, who shed a tear with me every time the coach stopped […]

    1848, Thomas Frost, Paul the Poacher, page 118

    “’Ullo, cock,” it said, amiably enough. “So you’ve come to, ’ave yer? ’Ang on a bit, an’ I’ll get you a cup o’ char.”

    1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 128

11. countableuncountableA boastful tilt of one's head or hat.
12. countableinformaluncountableA shuttlecock.
13. countableuncountableA vane in the shape of a cock; a weathercock.

    Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! blow! / You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout / Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!

    c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

14. countabledatedhumorousoftenuncountableA chief person; a leader or master.
15. countableobsoleteuncountableA leading thing.

    Sir Andrew is the cock of the club, since he left us.

    1711 August 10 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “MONDAY, July 31, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 132; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC

    3 more examples

    The contrarye [side of a die] to this... was called Venus, or Cous, and yt was cocke, the beste that might be cast.

    1542, Erasmus, translated by Nicholas Udall, Apophthegmata, page 164

    Tis sir Salomon's sword; cock of as many men as it hath been drawn against. Woe worth the man that comes in the way of so dead-doing a tool, […]

    1672 (original), 1776 (printed), Andrew Marvell, The Works of Andrew Marvell, page 154

    She is a widow, don, consider that; Has buried one was thought a Hercules, Two cubits taller, and a man that cut Three inches deeper in the say, than I; Consider that too : She may be cock o'twenty, nay, for aught know, she is immortal.

    1833, James Shirley, The Dramatic Works and Poems of James Shirley, page 232

16. countableuncountableThe crow of a cock, especially the first crow in the morning; cockcrow.

    And here we are, half-way to Alcalá, between cocks and midnight.

    1842 (published 1856), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poems …, page 334

    2 more examples

    This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock;

    c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]

    "I suppose, John," said Clara, as her brother entered the apartment," you are glad of a weaker cup this morning than those you were drinking last night - you were carousing till after the first cock."

    1823 December 23 (indicated as 1824), [Walter Scott], St Ronan’s Well. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 62

17. countableuncountableA male fish, especially a salmon or trout.

    1 more example

    As spawning time approaches – autumn or very early winter in most rivers, though in some late-run streams salmon may spawn as late as January or February – the hen's colouration becomes first a matt-pewter and then a drab dark brown-grey. The cock fish, in contrast, begins to gain some brighter colours.

    2005, Roderick Sutterby, Malcolm Greenhalgh, “Life in the Nursery”, in Atlantic Salmon: An Illustrated Natural History, Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, →ISBN, page 21

    Synonyms: cockfish, buck

18. countableuncountableThe style or gnomon of a sundial.

    Sun-dials, when the shadow of the Cock by passing over the lines of the hours[…]show the stay of the time sliding by.

    1656, William Dugard, (Please provide the book title or journal name)

19. countableuncountableThe indicator of a balance.

    The cock, or pointer, which makes a right angle with the beam, will stand upright when the weighing is accurate.

    1833, John Holland, Treatise on the Manufactures in Metal

20. countableuncountableThe bridge piece that affords a bearing for the pivot of a balance in a clock or watch.

    A round small Silver Watch[…]with a steel Chain[…]a brass Cock, an endless Screw

    (Can we date this quote?), “London Gazette”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)

present singular third person cocks · participle present cocking · participle past cocked · past cocked

1. ambitransitiveTo lift the cock of a firearm or crossbow; to prepare (a gun or crossbow) to be fired.

   Cocked, fired, and missed his man.

   1812, Lord Byron, The Waltz

2. intransitiveTo be prepared to be triggered by having the cock lifted.

   In the darkness, the gun cocked loudly.

3. transitiveTo erect; to turn up.

   Dick would cock his nose in scorn.

   1728, Jonathan Swift, A Dialogue Between Mad Mullinix and Timothy

   1 more example

   Our Lightfoot barks, and cocks his ears.

   1720, John Gay, Thursday: Or, The Spell

4. IrelandUKslangtransitiveTo copulate with; (by extension, as with fuck) to mess up, to damage, to destroy.

   Foster's Lager TV commercial, 1980s "Please tell me the way to Cockfosters." ... "Drink it warm, mate."

5. transitiveTo turn or twist something upwards or to one side; to lift or tilt (e.g. headwear) boastfully.

   He cocked his hat jauntily.

6. datedintransitiveTo turn (the eye) obliquely and partially close its lid, as an expression of derision or insinuation.

   The Sentry, to this question, said nothing in reply; / But first he cocked his rifle, and then he cocked his eye.

   1873, Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, Tom Taylor, Punch, volumes 64-65, page 36

7. datedintransitiveTo strut; to swagger; to look big, pert, or menacing.
8. obsoletetransitiveTo make a nestle-cock of, to pamper or spoil (a child).

1. IrelandUKslangExpression of annoyance.

plural cocks

1. A small conical pile of hay or grass.

   Near-synonyms: rick, stook, shock

   1 more example

   The farmhands stack the hay into cocks.

   Synonyms: rick, stook, shock

present singular third person cocks · participle present cocking · participle past cocked · past cocked

1. transitiveTo form into piles.

   Under the cocked hay.

   1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender

plural cocks

1. Southern USwhere it is now rare and dated; and African-American Vernacular; where it is still sometimes used; where it is now rare and dated; and African-American Vernacular; where it is still sometimes usedVulva, vagina.First known use since at least the 1920s; less common after the 1960s

   My back is made of whalebone And my cock is made of brass

   1935 March 5, “Shave 'Em Dry, No. 2”, in Raunchy Business: Hot Nuts & Lollypops, performed by Lucille Bogan, published 1991, track 6

   4 more examples

   Born in the canebrake and you were suckled by a bear, Jumped right through your mammy's cock and never touched a hair.

   c. 1920-1960, Rufus George Perryman (Speckled Red), quoted by Elijah Wald, The Dozens: A History of Rap's Mama

   The dog come a-trottin' and the dog come a-lopin' A purty little gal with her cock wide open.

   1992, Vance Randolph, edited by Gershon Legman, Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore: Roll me in your arms, volume 1, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, page 411

   I stuck my fist up in her cock, she didn't budge or move it.

   1998 February 17, Scarface, Too Short, Tela, Devin the Dude, “Fuck Faces”, in My Homies, track 8

   She smelled like she was on her period and hadn't changed pads. On ah many occasions I heard men say her cock smelled through her clothing.

   2010, Vildred C. Tucker-Dawson, A Journey Back in Time: My Story Book, →ISBN, page 42

plural cocks

1. abbreviationAbbreviation of cock-boat, a type of small boat.

   Yond tall anchoring bark [appears] / Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy / Almost too small for sight.

   c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vi]

1. obsoleteA corruption of the word God, used in oaths.

   By cock and pie.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

1. A surname.