Pronunciation Noun
rooster (plural roosters)
- (North America, Kent, Australia, NZ) A male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) or other gallinaceous bird.
- 1772 March 14, A.G. Winslow, Diary:
- Their other dish […] contain'd a number of roast fowls—half a dozen, we suppose, & all roosters at this season no doubt.
- 1836, Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada, p. 308:
- The produce of two hens and a cock, or rooster, as the Yankees term that bird.
- 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, iii, xvi, p. 616:
- Chalk a circle for a rooster.
- 1772 March 14, A.G. Winslow, Diary:
- A bird or bat which roosts or is roosting.
- (figuratively, obsolete slang) An informer.
- (figuratively, obsolete slang) A violent or disorderly person.
- (figuratively) A powerful, prideful, or pompous person.
- (figuratively, originally US slang, now chiefly NZ) A man.
- (regional US, historical) A wild violet, when used in a children's game based on cockfighting.
- 1946, Conrad Richter, The Fields, p. 231:
- In April they played Hens and Roosters, yoking their wild white and blue violets to see which would get its head pulled off.
- 1946, Conrad Richter, The Fields, p. 231:
- (obsolete US slang) Legislation solely devised to benefit the legislators proposing it.
- 1869 July, Southern Review, p. 54:
- American demoralisation... has carried rooster into the halls of republican legislation, where it indicates a bill or proposed law which will remunerate the legislators.
- 1869 July, Southern Review, p. 54:
- (male chicken) cock
- (informant) See Thesaurus:informant
- (violent person) brawler
- (powerful person) See Thesaurus:important person
- (pompous person) cock of the walk, cock of the roost
- (man) See Thesaurus:man
Rooster
Proper noun
- The tenth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.
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