cock
UK /kɒk/ · US /kɑk/ noun, verb, interjection, proper noun
Forms cocks cocking cocked
- noun A rooster: a male gallinaceous bird, especially a male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus).
- noun A cock pigeon.
- noun A valve or tap for controlling flow in plumbing.
- noun The hammer of a firearm trigger mechanism.
- noun (colloquial, vulgar) A penis.
- noun (curling) The circle at the end of the rink.
- noun The state of being cocked; an upward turn, tilt or angle.
- noun (UK, Commonwealth, Ireland, derogatory, slang) A stupid, obnoxious or contemptible person.
- verb (ambitransitive) To lift the cock of a firearm or crossbow; to prepare (a gun or crossbow) to be fired.
- verb (intransitive) To be prepared to be triggered by having the cock lifted. “In the darkness, the gun cocked loudly.”
- verb (transitive) To erect; to turn up.
- verb (UK, Ireland, transitive, slang) To copulate with; (by extension, as with fuck) to mess up, to damage, to destroy.
- verb (transitive) To turn or twist something upwards or to one side; to lift or tilt (e.g. headwear) boastfully. “He cocked his hat jauntily.”
- verb (intransitive, dated) To turn (the eye) obliquely and partially close its lid, as an expression of derision or insinuation.
- verb (intransitive, dated) To strut; to swagger; to look big, pert, or menacing.
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To make a nestle-cock of, to pamper or spoil (a child).
- interjection (UK, Ireland, slang) Expression of annoyance.
- noun A small conical pile of hay or grass. “The farmhands stack the hay into cocks.”
- verb (transitive) To form into piles.
- noun (Southern US, where it is now rare and dated; and African-American Vernacular, where it is still sometimes used) Vulva, vagina.
Synonyms
penis cockfish buck cockbird rooster rick stook shock prick dick shaft pecker peter tool putz stopcock turncock hammer tittup swagger ruffle prance strut sashay
Etymology
From Middle English cok, from Old English coc, cocc (“cock, male bird”), from Proto-West Germanic *kokk, 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, from the same origin. The sense "penis" is attested since at least the 1610s, with the compound pillicock (“penis”) attested since 1325.
From Middle English cokke, cock, cok, from Old English *cocc (“heap, pile”, attested in place names), from Proto-West Germanic *kokk, from Proto-Germanic *kukkaz (“mass, bulge, swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew- (“to bend, curve, arch”).
Cognate with dialectal German Kocke (“heap of hay, dunghill”), Norwegian kok (“heap, lump”), Swedish koka (“a lump of earth”), Norman coque (“small haystack”), Middle Low German kogge (“wide, rounded ship”), Dutch kogel (“ball”), German Kugel (“ball, globe”).
Uncertain. Some authors speculate it derives from cockle, a yonic fertility symbol, 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.
from Middle English cok, from Old French coque (“a type of small boat”), from child-talk coco ('egg').
Webster’s 1913
- noun The male of birds, particulary of gallinaceous or domestic fowls.
- noun A vane in the shape of a cock; a weathercock.
- verb To set erect; to turn up. Our Lightfoot barks, and cocks his ears. Gay.
- verb To shape, as a hat, by turning up the brim.
Etymology [AS. coc; of unkown origin, perh. in imitation of the cry of the cock. Cf. Chicken.]
Etymology [Cf. Gael. coc to cock.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “cock”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details