Cockney

• cockney

First attested in Samuel Rowland's 1600 The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head-Vaine as "a Bowe-bell Cockney", from Middle English cokenay (“a spoiled child; a milksop, an effeminate man”), used in the 16th c. by English country folk as a term of disparagement for city dwellers, of uncertain etymology. Possibly from Middle English cokeney (“a small, misshapen egg”), from coken (“cocks'”) + ey (“egg”) or from Cockney and Cocknay, variants of Cockaigne, a mythical land of luxury (first attested in 1305) eventually used as a humorous epithet of London. Compare cocker (“to spoil a child”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒk.ni/

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• Rhymes: -ɒkni

Cockney (not comparable)

1. From the East End of London, or London generally

Cockney (plural Cockneys)

1. (Britain slang) Any Londoner.
   • 1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words, 22

     COCKNEY, a native of London. An ancient nickname implying effeminacy, used by the oldest English writers, and derived from the imaginary fool's paradise, or lubberland, Cockaygne.

2. (Britain) A Londoner born within earshot of the city's Bow Bells, or (now generically) any working-class Londoner.
   • 1617, Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary

     Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow Bell, are in reproach called Cockneys.

   • 1617, John Minsheu, Ductor in Linguas

     A Cockney or Cocksie, applied only to one born within the sound of Bow bell, that is in the City of London.

Cockney

1. The dialect or accent of such Londoners.

• mockney