From .

• (British) IPA: /ˈɹuːstə/
• (America) IPA: /ˈɹustəɹ/, enPR: roo͞'stər

rooster (plural roosters)

1. (North America, Kent, Australia, NZ) A male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) or other gallinaceous bird.
   • 1836, Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada, page 308:

     The produce of two hens and a cock, or rooster, as the Yankees term that bird.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC ↗, part III [Nostos], page 616 ↗:

     Chalk a circle for a rooster.

2. A bird or bat which roosts or is roosting.
   • 1949, British Birds, 42, p. 323:

     The more leisured flight of the roosters [sc. starlings] was in contrast to the steady procession of the migrants.

3. (figuratively, obsolete slang) An informer.
4. (figuratively, obsolete slang) A violent or disorderly person.
5. (figuratively) A powerful, prideful, or pompous person.
6. (figuratively, originally US slang, now chiefly NZ) A man.
7. (regional US, historical) A wild violet, when used in a children's game based on cockfighting.
   • 1946, Conrad Richter, The Fields, page 231:

     In April they played Hens and Roosters, yoking their wild white and blue violets to see which would get its head pulled off.

8. (obsolete US slang) Legislation solely devised to benefit the legislators proposing it.

• (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

• roost

• French: coq
• German: Hahn
• Italian: gallo
• Portuguese: galo
• Russian: пету́х
• Spanish: gallo

1. The tenth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.