cock

English

Pronunciation
  • (UK) IPA(key): /kɒk/
  • (US) enPR: käk, IPA(key): /kɑk/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (UK)(file)
  • Homophone: caulk (some pronunciations)
  • Rhymes: -ɒk

Etymology 1

From Middle English cok, from Old English coc, cocc (“cock, male bird”), from Proto-Germanic *kukkaz (“cock”), probably of onomatopoeic origin. Cognate with Middle Dutch cocke (“cock, male bird”) and Old Norse kokkr ("cock"; whence Danish kok (“cock”), dialectal Swedish kokk (“cock”)). Reinforced by Old French coc, also of imitative origin. The sense "penis" is attested since at least the 1610s, with the compound pillicock (“penis”) attested since 1325.

Noun

cock (plural cocks)

  1. A male bird, especially:
    1. A rooster: a male gallinaceous bird, especially a male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus).
    2. A single word (in context) for a cock pigeon (male pigeon).
  2. A valve or tap for controlling flow in plumbing.
  3. The hammer of a firearm trigger mechanism.
  4. The notch of an arrow or crossbow.
  5. (colloquial, vulgar) The penis.
  6. (curling) The circle at the end of the rink.
  7. The state of being cocked; an upward turn, tilt or angle.
  8. (Britain, New Zealand, derogatory, slang) A stupid person.
  9. (informal, Britain, Tasmania) Term of address.
    All right, cock?
  10. A boastful tilt of one's head or hat.
  11. (informal) shuttlecock
  12. A vane in the shape of a cock; a weathercock.
  13. (dated, humorous) A chief man; a leader or master.
    • Addison
      Sir Andrew is the cock of the club, since he left us.
  14. The crow of a cock, especially the first crow in the morning; cockcrow.
    • 1623, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3, Scene 4, 1821, The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare, page 159,
      This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock;
  15. The style or gnomon of a sundial.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Chambers to this entry?)
  16. The indicator of a balance.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)
  17. The bridge piece that affords a bearing for the pivot of a balance in a clock or watch.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)
Synonyms
Derived terms
Descendants
Translations
male chicken; male gallinaceous bird — see rooster
valve or tap for controlling flow of liquid — see stopcock
slang: penis — see dick
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

cock (third-person singular simple present cocks, present participle cocking, simple past and past participle cocked)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To lift the cock of a firearm or crossbow; to prepare (a gun or crossbow) to be fired.
    • Byron
      Cocked, fired, and missed his man.
  2. (intransitive) To be prepared to be triggered by having the cock lifted.
    In the darkness, the gun cocked loudly.
  3. (transitive) To erect; to turn up.
    • Gay
      Our Lightfoot barks, and cocks his ears.
    • Jonathan Swift
      Dick would cock his nose in scorn.
  4. (Britain, transitive, slang) To copulate with.
  5. (transitive) To turn or twist something upwards or to one side; to lift or tilt (e.g. headwear) boastfully.
    He cocked his hat jauntily.
  6. (intransitive, dated) To turn (the eye) obliquely and partially close its lid, as an expression of derision or insinuation.
  7. (intransitive, dated) To strut; to swagger; to look big, pert, or menacing.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Addison to this entry?)
  8. (transitive, obsolete) To make a nestle-cock of, to pamper or spoil (of children)
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

Interjection

cock

  1. (slang) Expression of annoyance.
    • 2006, "Vamp", oh cock i should have kept with a toyota! (on newsgroup uk.rec.cars.modifications)

See also

Etymology 2

Uncertain. Some authors speculate it derives from cockle, a yonic fertility symbol,[1] others suggested it entered Southern US vernacular during the period of French rule (of Louisiana) from Cajun French coquille (“shell”) (itself the source of cockle), which in 18th and 19th century slang meant the vulva.[2]

Noun

cock (plural cocks)

  1. (dated in the Southern US, still sometimes found in African American Vernacular) Vulva, vagina. [since at least the 1920s; less common after the 1960s]
    • c. 1920-1960,, Rufus George Perryman (Speckled Red), quoted by Elijah Wald, The Dozens: A History of Rap's Mama:
      Born in the canebrake and you were suckled by a bear,
      Jumped right through your mammy's cock and never touched a hair.
    • 1949 March 2, Mrs. H. K. of Camden, Missouri, quoted by Vance Randolph, Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore: Roll me in your arms, Volume 1:
      I've got a girl in Castle Rock,
      She wears a moustache on her cock.
    • 1998, Scarface, Fuck Faces (song):
      I stuck my fist up in her cock, she didn't budge or move it.
    • 2010, Vildred C. Tucker-Dawson, A Journey Back in Time: My Story Book:
      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.

References
  1. Elijah Wald, The Dozens: A History of Rap's Mama
  2. Vance Randolph, Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore: Roll me in your arms, Volume 1: "cock [...] is a southernism [...] where a northerner would say, or expect, cunt. This confusing usage originated during the French domination of the U. S. south; it comes from the French term, [...] coquille, cockleshell, for the vagina"; the work has examples from as early as 1927

Etymology 3

From Middle English cokke, cock, cok, from Old English -cocc (attested in place names), from Old Norse kǫkkr (“lump”), from Proto-Germanic *kukkaz (“bulge, swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *geugh- (“swelling”). Cognate with Norwegian kok (“heap, lump”), Swedish koka (“a lump of earth”), German Kocke (“heap of hay, dunghill”), Middle Low German kogge (“wide, rounded ship”), Dutch kogel (“ball”), German Kugel (“ball, globe”).

Noun

cock (plural cocks)

  1. A small conical pile of hay.
    The farmhands stack the hay into cocks
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

cock (third-person singular simple present cocks, present participle cocking, simple past and past participle cocked)

  1. (transitive) To form into piles.
    • Spenser
      Under the cocked hay.
Translations

Etymology 4

from Middle English cok, from Old French coque (“a type of small boat”), from child-talk coco 'egg'

Noun

cock (plural cocks)

  1. Short for cock-boat, a type of small boat.
    • Shakespeare
      Yond tall anchoring bark [appears] / Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy / Almost too small for sight.

Etymology 5

Proper noun

cock

  1. (obsolete) A corruption of the word God, used in oaths.
    • Shakespeare
      By cock and pie.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for cock in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

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