Definition
nounA male bird, especially:
nounA male bird, especially:, A rooster: a male gallinaceous bird, especially a male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus).
Sentence Examples
It is a sad house where the hen crows louder than the cock.
He was the cock of the walk.
The crowing of a cock is the harbinger of dawn.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *kukkaz
Proto-West Germanic *kokk
Old English cocc
Middle English cok
English cock
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The liquor is discharged from the cock S into liquor cans V […], from which it is transferred to the sugar in the moulds. W represents one of the traps or stairs which communicate with respective floors of the sugarhouse."
— 1864, Robert Niccol, Essay on Sugar, and General Treatise on Sugar Refining:
"She doesn't see his cock, but she doesn't want to, what's the point, right?"
— 1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 356:
"My cock is much bigger than yours / My cock can walk right through the door / With a feeling so pure / It's got you screaming back for more"
— 2005, System of a Down, “Cigaro”:
"[…] with a knowing cock of his eye to his next neighbour. Of this person little need be said."
— 1823 December 23 (indicated as 1824), [Walter Scott], St Ronan’s Well. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 32:
"[…] in 1803; my eyes transmogrified […]; my nose had lost its pretty cock, and had grown elegantly hooked; and […]"
— 1843, James Anthony Froude, John Tulloch, Fraser's Magazine, page 694: