• (RP) IPA: /kɒk/
• (America) IPA: /kɑk/

From Middle English cok, from Old English coc, cocc, from Proto-West Germanic *kokk, from Proto-Germanic *kukkaz, probably of onomatopoeic origin.

Cognate with Middle Dutch cocke and Old Norse kokkr "cock"; whence Danish kok, dialectal Swedish kokk. 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.

cock

1. A male bird, especially:

   Hyponyms: peacock, turkeycock, stag

   1. A rooster: a male gallinaceous bird, especially a male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus).
   2. A cock pigeon.
2. A valve or tap for controlling flow in plumbing.
   • 1864, Robert Niccol, Essay on Sugar, and General Treatise on Sugar Refining:

     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.

3. The hammer of a firearm trigger mechanism.
4. (colloquial, vulgar) A penis.

   Alternative form: cawk

5. (curling) The circle at the end of the rink.
6. The state of being cocked; an upward turn, tilt or angle.
   • 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 ↗:

     […] with a knowing cock of his eye to his next neighbour. Of this person little need be said.

   • 1843, James Anthony Froude, John Tulloch, Fraser's Magazine, page 694:

     […] in 1803; my eyes transmogrified […] ; my nose had lost its pretty cock, and had grown elegantly hooked; and […]

   • 1851 April 8, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields:

     One day, however, by her self-important gait, the side-way turn of her head, and the cock of her eye, as she pried into one and another nook of the garden, […]

7. (Britain, Commonwealth, Ireland, derogatory, slang) A stupid, obnoxious or contemptible person.
8. (Britain, Ireland, Commonwealth, derogatory, slang, uncountable) Nonsense; rubbish; a fraud.
   • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor:

     The running patterer cares less than other street-sellers for bad weather, for if he "work" on a wet and gloomy evening, and if the work be "a cock," which is a fictitious statement or even a pretended fictitious statement, there is the less chance of any one detecting the ruse.

9. (slang, Britain, Ireland, Commonwealth, especially as term of address) A man; a fellow.

   Hyponym: dick

   All right, cock?

   • 1848, Thomas Frost, Paul the Poacher, page 118:

     Now, in coming down here, I journeyed part of the way with a jolly old cock, who shed a tear with me every time the coach stopped […]

10. A boastful tilt of one's head or hat.
11. (informal) Shuttlecock.
12. A vane in the shape of a cock; a weathercock.
    • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene ii]:

      Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! blow! / You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout / Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!

13. (dated, often, humorous) A chief person; a leader or master.
14. (obsolete) A leading thing.
    • 1672 (original), 1776 (printed), Andrew Marvell, The Works of Andrew Marvell, page 154:

      Tis sir Salomon's sword; cock of as many men as it hath been drawn against. Woe worth the man that comes in the way of so dead-doing a tool, […]

    • 1711 August 11 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “TUESDAY, July 31, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 132; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC ↗:

      Sir Andrew is the cock of the club, since he left us.

      The spelling has been modernized.

    • 1833, James Shirley, The Dramatic Works and Poems of James Shirley, page 232:

      She is a widow, don, consider that; Has buried one was thought a Hercules, Two cubits taller, and a man that cut Three inches deeper in the say, than I; Consider that too : She may be cock o'twenty, nay, for aught know, she is immortal.

15. The crow of a cock, especially the first crow in the morning; cockcrow.
    • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene iv]:

      This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock;

    • 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 62 ↗:

      "I suppose, John," said Clara, as her brother entered the apartment," you are glad of a weaker cup this morning than those you were drinking last night - you were carousing till after the first cock."

    • 1842 (published 1856), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poems [...], page 334:

      And here we are, half-way to Alcalá, between cocks and midnight.

16. A male fish, especially a salmon or trout.

    Synonyms: cockfish

    Coordinate terms: hen, henfish

17. The style or gnomon of a sundial.
18. The indicator of a balance.
19. The bridge piece that affords a bearing for the pivot of a balance in a clock or watch.

• (male bird) cockbird
• (male chicken) rooster
• (penis) see Thesaurus:penis

• cockerel

• French: mâle
• German: Männchen (generic term for the male of any animal)
• Italian: maschio, uccello
• Portuguese: ave-macho
• Spanish: ave macho

• German: Tauber, Täuber, Tauberich, Täuberich, Taubenmännchen

• French: chien
• German: Hahn
• Italian: cane
• Portuguese: cão
• Russian: куро́к

• Italian: inclinazione

• French: gland, con, conne, con comme une valise sans poignée, débile, bouffon, bouffonne, triso, abruti, abrutie, imbécile
• Italian: cazzone
• Russian: приду́рок

• French: camarade, mon vieux
• Italian: compagno

cock (cocks, present participle cocking; simple past and past participle cocked)

1. (ambitransitive) To lift the cock of a firearm or crossbow; to prepare (a gun or crossbow) to be fired.
   • 1812, Lord Byron, The Waltz:

     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.
   • 1720, John Gay, Thursday: Or, The Spell:

     Our Lightfoot barks, and cocks his ears.

   • 1728, Jonathan Swift, A Dialogue Between Mad Mullinix and Timothy:

     Dick would cock his nose in scorn.

4. (British, Irish, transitive, slang) To copulate with; (by extension, as with fuck) to mess up, to damage, to destroy.
   • Foster's Lager TV commercial, 1980s

     "Please tell me the way to Cockfosters." ... "Drink it warm, mate."

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.
8. (transitive, obsolete) To make a nestle-cock of, to pamper or spoil (a child).

• French: armer le chien
• Italian: armare
• Portuguese: engatilhar
• Russian: взводи́ть

• Russian: взводиться

• French: ériger

• French: baiser, faire une partie de jambes en l’air, poutrer, s’envoyer en l’air, niquer, ken, faire l'amour, forniquer, copuler, coïter, sauter, enculer

• French: retourner
• Italian: alzare, drizzare
• Russian: заломить

1. (UK, slang)

cock (plural cocks)

1. (Southern US, where it is now, rare and dated, ; and AAVE, where it is still sometimes used) 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.

From Middle English cokke, cock, cok, from Old English cocc, from Old Norse kǫkkr, from Proto-Germanic *kukkaz, from Proto-Indo-European *geugh-.

Cognate with Norwegian kok, Swedish koka, German Kocke, Middle Low German kogge, Dutch kogel, German Kugel.

cock (plural cocks)

1. Hay-cock, a small conical pile of hay.

   The farmhands stack the hay into cocks.

• Russian: копна́

cock (cocks, present participle cocking; simple past and past participle cocked)

1. (transitive) To form into piles.
   • 1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender:

     Under the cocked hay.

from Middle English cok, from Old French coque, from child-talk coco ('egg').

cock (plural cocks)

1. Abbr of cock-boat a type of small boat.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act V, scene vi]:

     Yond tall anchoring bark [appears] / Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy / Almost too small for sight.

1. (obsolete) A corruption of the word God, used in oaths.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     By cock and pie.

• As a Dutch - and West Flemish - surname, from de Cock, related to the noun cook.
• As an English surname, spelling variant of Cox.

1. Surname.