cockpit

plural cockpits

1. historicalA pit or other enclosure for cockfighting.First known use 16th c.

   A cockpit, which was still used for cock-fighting during the Napoleonic Wars, used to occupy the site of the vicarage.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 224, about Heptonstall

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   I obſerv'd a Place where there had been a Fire made, and a Circle dug in the Earth, like a Cockpit, where it is ſuppoſed the Savage Wretches had ſat down to their inhumane Feaſtings upon the Bodies of their Fellow-Creatures.

   1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, pages 194–195

   Cockfighting has been banned during the virus outbreak. Before the pandemic, it was allowed only in licensed cockpits on Sundays and legal holidays, as well as during local fiestas lasting a maximum of three days[…]

   2020 October 28, “Police officer raiding illegal cockfight gets killed by rooster”, in BBC News

2. broadlyobsoleteA theater or other entertainment venue.First known use 16th c.

   The Cockpit or Phoenix Theatre in Drury Lane stood in the parish of St. Giles'-in-the-Fields, on what is now Pitt-place—properly Cockpit-place or Alley.

   1643, The Actor's Remonstrance or Complaint, for the silencing of their Profession and banishment from their several Play-houses, page 2

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   But pardon, and gentles all, / The flat unraised spirits that have dared / On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth / So great an object: can this cockpit hold / The vasty fields of France? or may we cram / Within this wooden O the very casques / That did affright the air at Agincourt?

   1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, prologue]

3. figurativelyA site of conflict; a battlefield.

   India became the cockpit in which it was shown that trade was war carried on under another name.

   2016, Peter Ackroyd, Revolution, Pan Macmillan, published 2017, page 170

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   Hungary is become the onely Cockpit of the World, where the Turkes doe strive to gain, and the Christians at the charge of the Emperor of Germany (who entituleth himselfe King of Hungary) doe labour to repulse them: and few summers do passe, but that something is either wonne or lost by either party.

   1624, George Abbot (bishop), A Briefe Description of the Whole World, wherein is particularly described all the Monarchies, Empires and Kingdoms of the same, with their Academies, page 74

4. vulgarThe vagina.First known use 17th c.

   […] [S]o that her thighs duly diſclos'd, and elevated, laid open all the outward proſpect of the treaſury of love: the roſe-lipt ouverture preſenting the cock-pit ſo fair, that it was not in nature even for a natural to miſs it: […]

   Fanny Hill

   1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the Second]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume II, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC, page 191

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   If then the stone, as doctors tell the story, / Be a disease that prove hereditory, / I trust her daughter will have so much wit, / Early to get a cock for her cock-pit; / And rather then be barren; play the whore, / As her great mother hath done heretofore.

   1658, John Eliot, Poems, London: Henry Brome

5. JamaicaA valley surrounded by steep forested slopes.First known use 17th c.

   The grand object of a Maroon chief in war was to take a ſtation in ſome glen, or, as it is called in the Weſt Indies, Cockpit, encloſed by rocks and mountains nearly perpendicular, and to which the only practicable entrance is by a very narrow defile.

   1803, R. C. Dallas, Esq., The History of the Maroons: […] , volume 1, London: T. N. Longman and O. Rees, →OCLC, page 39

plural cockpits

1. historicalnauticalThe area set aside for junior officers including the ship's surgeon on a man-of-war, where the wounded were treated; the sickbay.First known use 17th c.
2. nauticalA well, usually near the stern, where the helm is located.First known use 18th c.
3. The driver's compartment in a racing car (or, by extension, in a sports car or other automobile).First known use 20th c.
4. The compartment in an aircraft or spacecraft in which the pilot sits and from where the craft is controlled.First known use 20th c.

   Jump in the cockpit and start up the engines / Remove all the wheel blocks, there's no time to waste

   1984, Steve Harris, “Aces High”, in Powerslave, performed by Iron Maiden

   Synonyms: flight deck, office

5. figurativelyAn area from where something is controlled or managed; a centre of control.First known use 20th c.