rooster

plural roosters · alternative roo

1. AustraliaCanadaKentNew ZealandUScountableuncountableA male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) or other gallinaceous bird.

   Chalk a circle for a rooster.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 616

   2 more examples

   Their other dish […] contain'd a number of roast fowls—half a dozen, we suppose, & all roosters at this season no doubt.

   1772 March 14, A.G. Winslow, Diary

   The produce of two hens and a cock, or rooster, as the Yankees term that bird.

   1836, Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada, page 308

   Synonyms: cock

2. countableuncountableA bird or bat which roosts or is roosting.

   The more leisured flight of the roosters [sc. starlings] was in contrast to the steady procession of the migrants.

   1949, British Birds, 42, p. 323

   1 more example

   Ground roosters like Northern Harriers may be subject to predation by Great-horned Owls […] but still larger perchers like herons and Ospreys use snags or posts in conspicuous places but are large enough to escape aerial predators.

   1999, Milton W. Weller, Wetland Birds: Habitat Resources and Conservation Implications

3. countablefigurativelyobsoleteslanguncountableAn informer.

   Synonyms: informant

4. countablefigurativelyobsoleteslanguncountableA violent or disorderly person.

   Synonyms: brawler

5. countablefigurativelyuncountableA powerful, prideful, or pompous person.

   Synonyms: important person, cock of the walk, cock of the roost

6. New ZealandcountablefigurativelyuncountableA man.

   Synonyms: man

7. UScountablehistoricalregionaluncountableA wild violet, when used in a children's game based on cockfighting.

   In April they played Hens and Roosters, yoking their wild white and blue violets to see which would get its head pulled off.

   1946, Conrad Richter, The Fields, page 231

8. USobsoleteslanguncountableLegislation solely devised to benefit the legislators proposing it.

   American demoralisation... has carried rooster into the halls of republican legislation, where it indicates a bill or proposed law which will remunerate the legislators.

   1869 July, Southern Review, page 54

1. The tenth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.