cock
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A rooster: a male gallinaceous bird.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahkIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɑk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A rooster: a male gallinaceous bird, especially a male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus).
Adult male bird
A valve or tap for controlling flow in plumbing.
The hammer of a firearm trigger mechanism.
The state of being cocked; an upward turn, tilt or angle.
A boastful tilt of one's head or hat.
verb
transitive
To erect; to turn up.
Tilt or slant to one side
“The dog would cock its head when it heard strange noises.”
transitive
To turn or twist something upwards or to one side; to lift or tilt (e.g. headwear) boastfully.
transitive
To form into piles.
britishirelandtransitiveslang
To copulate with; (by extension, as with fuck) to mess up, to damage, to destroy.
intransitive
To be prepared to be triggered by having the cock lifted.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A rooster: a male gallinaceous bird, especially a male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus).
Used this way, cock is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A small breed with wavy silky hair.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An imitation of the crow of a cock.
Soup made from chicken boiled with leeks.
An interesting but highly implausible story.
Bird of the Andes similar to Rupicola rupicola.
Slang for fellatio.
Raise.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.