Middle English Dictionary Entry

cok n.(1)
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Entry Info

Forms cok n.(1) Also cock(e, koce. Pl. cokkes.
Etymology OE & OF coc (from ML coccum).

Definitions (Senses and Subsenses)

1a.
(a) The male of the common domestic fowl: cock, rooster; ~ chike(n, ?a young cock; ~ tord, a cock's excrement; (b) the male of other birds; culver ~; fesaunt ~; mor ~ (q.v.); po ~ (q.v.); tele ~, the male of a teal.
Show 25 Quotations
1b.
In cpds. and combs.: (a) ~ (cokkes) comb, the crest of a cock; (b) cokkes fot, the common columbine Aquilegia vulgaris; cokkes hed, yellow melilot Melilot officinalis ;cokkes spur, one of two weeds, darnel Lolium temulentum or cockle Agrostemma githago.
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2.
(a) Her. A cock in a coat of arms; (b) a weathercock; weder ~.
Show 3 Quotations
3.
(a) cokkes crou, cok-crou, cokkes crouinge, cok-crouinge, the crowing of the cock at dawn; at, bifore ~, at (before) dawn; the firste ~, the earliest cock's crowing (?at midnight); (b) the firste cok, the cock crowing first, (?at midnight); the thridde ~, the cock crowing at dawn.
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4.
(a) cok-fighting, cokkes ~, cock-fighting; (b) cok-sheting, sheting at the cok, the sport of shooting with arrows at a cock tied to a post; (c) cok-threshing, the sport of lashing at a cock while blindfolded.
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5.
Proverbs, sayings, idioms: (a) proverbs; (b) ben aller cok, to wake everybody; accounten at a cokkes fether, regard as negligible; casten at the cok, neglect.
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6.
(a) In personal names; (b) as, and in, the names of alehouses.
Show 14 Quotations

Supplemental Materials (draft)

  • (1426) in Salzman Building in Engl.306 : [Nails called] kocspykyng [at 8 d.].
    • Note: Also.
    Note: Belongs to sense 1a.(a)
    Note: Gloss: ~ spikinge, ?a nail resembling a cockspur.(See MED spīking(e n.)
    Note: This quot. has been taken back to books.
Note: Review forms in all quots., because the list of variant spellings in the form section may not be complete (especially since the quots. which were under cokkes- in the MED have been subsumed under this entry).--notes per MLL

Supplemental Materials (draft)

Note: Suggestions in earlier versions of the MED that 'cock's comb' (and its variants, sense 1b.(b)), as they appear in some glossarial quotations, might be a plant name (darnel or cockle?) appear to be baseless and have been removed, on advice from OED. For L 'galla' in the sense 'cock's comb,' see DMLBS, s.v. galla (2).

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