Meaning & use
cock
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountableBritish
A fully grown male chicken, which crows; also the male of some other birds.
Grammar: British English prefers cock where American English says rooster.
Patterns
- the cock crows
The cock crowed at dawn and woke the whole farm.
A cock pheasant has brighter feathers than the hen.
The farmer kept one cock with twenty hens.
nouncountabletechnicalold-fashioned
A tap or valve that controls the flow of liquid or gas.
Grammar: Technical or old-fashioned; often seen in compounds such as stopcock.
Patterns
- turn the cock
- a stopcock
He turned the cock to stop the water.
The gas cock was stiff.
Check the stopcock before leaving.
verbtransitive
To tilt something, such as your head, to one side, or to pull back the hammer of a gun to make it ready to fire.
Grammar: Takes an object: cock your head, cock a pistol.
Patterns
- cock your head
- cock a gun
The dog cocked its head when it heard the doorbell.
He cocked the rifle and waited.
She cocked an eyebrow at the idea.
nouncountablevulgarslang
A vulgar word for a penis.
Grammar: Very rude; avoid in polite company.
Using cock for the body part is considered vulgar and is rarely printed in formal writing.
Many people find this sense of cock offensive in mixed company.
Teachers advise learners to avoid this sense of cock entirely.
Word forms
| plural | cocks |
|---|---|
| third person singular | cocks |
| past tense | cocked |
| past participle | cocked |
| -ing form | cocking |
Common combinations
- cock crow
- We were up at cock crow.
- cock a snook
- He cocked a snook at the rules.
- cocked hat
- The admiral wore a cocked hat.
- cock your head
- The puppy cocked its head.
- cock an ear
- She cocked an ear to hear the noise.
Synonyms and how they differ
- rooster
- Rooster is the American term for a male chicken and is also common in Australia.
- tilt
- Tilt is the neutral verb for leaning something, while cock is more particular to heads and hats.
- tap
- Tap is the common British word for a valve; cock sounds technical or dated.
Opposites
Word family
- cockerel noun
- a young male chicken
- cocky adjective
- too confident in an annoying way
- cockpit noun
- the area where the pilot sits
- cock-a-doodle-doo interjection
- the sound a rooster makes
Commonly confused: cock or cork?
cock vs cork
Cork is a stopper for a bottle or a tree material. Cock sounds similar, but cork is not an animal or valve.
Practice
The farmer woke at dawn when the ___ crowed.
Choose one answer.
Only a cock, the male chicken, crows. A hen lays eggs, a chick is a baby bird and a goose honks.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cock”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.