Cock the eye, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To shut or wink one eye; to
leer; to look incredulous. Fr., cligner des œillets. Cf., Cock-eyed.
[In venery a woman with a cock in her eye = a woman in a condition of
sexual excitement, a woman that ‘means business.’ Cf., Pintle-keek
(q.v.) and Look Pricks.] Of the kindred phrase, to cock the chin, an
illustration appears in Elegant Extracts.
As Dick and Tom in fierce dispute engage, And face to face the
noisy contest wage; ‘Don’t cock your chin at me,’ Dick smartly
cries. ‘Fear not, his head’s not charg’d,’ a friend replies.
The French equivalent is s’aborgner (literally ‘to make oneself blind
of one eye by closing it’).
1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. ii. He ... made wry faces,
and, to use the vulgar phrase, cocked his eye at him, to the no
small entertainment of the spectators.
1836. Marryat, Japhet, ch. iv. Timothy put on his hat, cocked his
eye at me, and left us alone.
1859. J. Eastwood, in Notes and Queries, 2 S., viii., 461. The
phrase cock your eye is not at all an uncommon one in
Yorkshire—meaning ‘direct your eye, give a glance.’
To Cock Snooks, verbal phr. (common).—See Coffee-milling and Snooks.
That cock won’t fight. phr. (common).—Originally cock-pit slang. Said
of things problematical or doubtful.
1844. Puck, p. 124. ‘Song of the First Tragedian ... having pawned
his properties.’ Suppose I told my uncle what I fear he’d not
believe, That I’ll certainly repay him the money ere I leave; That
my benefit when it comes off is sure to prove a hit, I don’t think,
with a screw like him, that cock would fight a bit.
By cock or by cock and pye. phr. (old).—‘Cock’ is here a corruption, or
disguise of ‘God.’ We find also ‘cocks-passion,’ ‘cocks-body,’ and
other allusions to the Saviour, or His body, as supposed to exist in
the Host: the expression surviving the belief. In by cock and pye, the
pie, or Sacred Book of Offices is added. By cock and pie and mousefoot,
is quoted from the old play of Soliman and Perseda, Orig. of Drama,
ii., p. 211.
1571. Edwards, Damon and Pythias, Old Pl., i., 216. W. By the masse
I will boxe you. J. By cocke I will foxe you.
1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, iv., 5. By cocke they are to blame.
1598. Shakspeare, Henry IV., pt. II., Act v., Sc. 1. By cock and
pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.
1606. Wily, Beguilede. Now by cock and pie, you never spoke a truer
word in your life.
Knocked a-cock, adv. phr. (pugilistic).—Knocked ‘all of a heap,’ or
‘out of time.’ Obviously adapted from the lingo of the cock-pit, and
suggested by the sight of the beaten bird laid on his back.
Cock-a-Doodle Broth, subs. phr. (? nonce phrase).—See quot.
1856. Reade, Never Too Late to Mend, ch. lxxxv. He complains that
‘he can’t peck,’ yet continues the cause of his infirmity, living
almost entirely upon cock-a-doodle broth,—eggs beat up in brandy
and a little water.
Cock-a-Hoop or Cock-on (or in-a)-Hoop, adj. (colloquial).—Strutting;
triumphant; high-spirited; ‘uppish.’ [Ray suggested that it refers to
the practice of taking out the spigot (an old synonym for the penis, by
the way) and laying it on the top of a barrel with a view to drinking
the latter dry; a proceeding that would naturally induce a certain
swagger in the actors. There seems, however, no doubt that the true
derivative is the French coq à houppé. Houppé, in French, is a tuft,
touffe (and toupet, is kindred). Littré says, terme de blason, tuft of
silk or tassel hanging from a hat: ‘Elle sert de timbre au chapeau des
cardinaux,’ etc. Houppée is the foam on the top of a wave. Houppe is
the tuft on a trencher cap: ‘Qui distingue,’ says Tarver, ‘le bonnet
des nobles de celui des autres’ at the universities—hence tuft-hunter,
coureur de houppes. Also, ‘Il trouve à se fourrer parmi les plus
huppés’ = he contrives to vie with those at the very top of fashion.
The Hoopoe, (Lat. Upupa), is a crested bird. Hence coq à houppé is a
crested cock, and by analogy one swaggering, triumphant, exulting; so
‘cock-a-hoop’ is ‘cock-a-top,’ ‘cock-a-crest,’ elated beyond
reason—‘cocky,’ as schoolboys say—‘cock of the walk,’ ‘cock at the
top.’ In cock-fighting, the ‘cock-a-top’ is he that gets the vantage
stroke. ‘Abattre l’orgueil des plus huppés’; to bring down the crest of
the highest. Cock-a-hoop is plainly the original expression, and
cock-on-the-hoop a later form adopted when the original meaning had
vanished.] English equivalents are ‘in full feather,’ and
‘a-cock-horse’ (q.v.), while colloquial French has s’en pourlécher la
face and s’émérillonner (to become cheerful through repeated
potations).
1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act i., Sc. 5. Am I the master
here or you? Go to.... You will set cock-a-hoop! you’ll be the man.
1633. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, V., ii. John Clay agen! nay then—set
cock-a-hoop: I have lost no daughter, nor no money, justice.
1707. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. XII., p. 20. Those
cruel, sanctify’d Pretenders, Now rais’d by Fortune, cock-a-hoop.
1853. Diogenes, II., 195. ‘Our Foreign News Summary.’ All the
cock-a-hoop Beys in the Sultan’s dominions Have taken to expressing
their individual opinions.
1885. D. C. Murray, Rainbow Gold, bk. IV., ch. vi. He’s a fine lad,
a fine lad, but cock-a-whoop, and over certain for his years.
Cock-Ale, subs. (old).—A homely aphrodisiac.—[Grose, 1785.] [An
allusion to the penis and the stirring tendency of strong beer.] Nares
says it was ‘a sort of ale which was very celebrated in the seventeenth
century for its superior quality.’
1675. Woman Turn’d Bully [quoted in Nares]. Spr. How, Mr. Trupenny,
not a drop worth drinking? Did you ever taste our cock-ale?
1698. Ward, London Spy. My friend by this time (knowing the
entertainment of the house) had called for a bottle of cock-ale, of
which I tasted a glass, but could not conceive it to be anything
but a mixture of small beer and treacle. If this be cock-ale, said
I, e’en let cockscombs drink it. [n.]
1738. Poor Robin. Notwithstanding the large commendations you give
the juice of barley, yet if compar’d with canary, it’s no more than
a mole-hill to a mountain; whether it be cock-ale, China ale, etc.
[n.]
Also cock-broth, etc.
Cock Alley, subs. (old).—The female pudendum. Other derivations of the
same make are Cock-chafer, Cock Hall, Cock Inn, Cock Lane, Cock-Loft,
Cock-Pit, Cockshire, and Cock-shy. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
Cockalorum or Cockylorum, subs. (common).—1. A half contemptuous
address.—See quot.
1815–23. T. C. Carter, in Daily News, 7 Dec., 1889, p. 3, col. 5.
In 1823 was displayed in a shop window in Pilgrim Street, Ludgate
Hill, a picture entitled ‘Seizure for Rent.’ It represented the
interior of a room; the only article of furniture a bottomless
chair, on the edge of which was seated a half-clad man smoking a
pipe. The doorway was filled up by a very fat beadle in full
uniform; behind him in the shade could be seen two men, each with a
porter’s knot. To the beadle the tenant was saying: ‘Now then, old
cockalorum jig, seize away.’ In my school days, from 1815 to 1820,
we often heard in the playground: ‘Now little cockalorum, out of
that.’
2. (schoolboys’).—A rough and tumble game described as follows by a
correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette (1890, Jan. 4, p. 2, col. 1):—
When I went to Harrow, thirty years ago, I found a winter evening
game in force there, called ‘high cockalorum,’ of which I send you
a sketch. The players used to divide into two opposing bands of
from twelve to fourteen each—in fact, the more the merrier. One
side ‘went down,’ so as to constitute a long ‘hogsback’—the last
boy having a couple of pillows between himself and the wall, and
each boy clasping his front rank man, and carefully tucking his own
‘cocoa-nut’ under his right arm, so as to prevent fracture of the
vertebræ. When the hogsback was thus formed, the other side came
on, leap-frogging on to the backs of those who were down, the best
and steadiest jumpers being sent first. Sometimes the passive line
was broken quite easily by the ruse of a short high jump, coming
with irresistible impulse on a back which was not expecting weight
just yet. Sometimes a too ambitious leap-frogger ruined his party
by overbalancing and falling off. It was, however, as the last two
or three leap-froggers came on that the real excitement more
generally began. There was absolutely no back-space belonging to
the other party left to them; and they were obliged to pile
themselves one upon another—‘Pelion on Ossa’ as it was called. When
the last man was up it was his duty to say, ‘High cockalorum jig
jig jig—high cockalorum jig jig jig—high cockalorum jig jig
jig—off, off, off,’ and then alone was it permissible for tortured
and perspiring human nature to fall in one indistinguishable heap
to the ground. The repeater of the shibboleth often fell off
himself as he was uttering the above incantation—thus losing the
victory for his side. It was a splendid game. I understood from
family inquiries that it was played at Harrow in my great
grandfather’s time.
Cock-and-Breeches, subs. (common).—A sturdy, little man, or boy.
Cock-and-Bull-Story, subs. (colloquial).—An idle or silly story.
[Presumably from some old legend of a cock and a bull, apropos to which
it should be noted that the French equivalent is coq-à-l’âne, a
‘cock-and-ass.’]
1603. John Day, Law Trickes, Act iv., p. 66. Didst marke what a
tale of a Cock and a Bull he tolde my father whilst I made thee and
the rest away.
1759. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. IX., ch. xxxiii. L—d! said my
mother, what is all this about? A Cock and a Bull, said Yorick—and
one of the best of its kind I ever heard.
1857. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. v. That
sounds like a cock-and-bull story, said the young fellow whom they
call John. I abstained from making Hamlet’s remarks to Horatio and
continued.
1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., xxiv., p. 432. ‘Giving ear
to a cock-and-bull story that can’t be true!’
Cock-and-Hen-Club, subs. (common).—1. A free and easy gathering, or
‘sing-song,’ where females are admitted as well as males. [From
cock-and-hen, the male and female bird, and used figuratively for men
and women, + club.]
1819. Thos. Moore, Tom Crib’s Mem. to Congr., p. 78. A Masquerade,
or Fancy Ball, given lately at one of the most fashionable
Cock-and-Hen Clubs in St. Giles’s.
1828. G. Smeeton, Days in London, p. 40. Introduced him to one of
the cock-and-hen houses near Drury Lane Theatre well primed with
wine.