Cock (slang)

Cock is a common English slang word for the human penis. It is asserted to have been in use as early as 1450. The term has given rise to a wide range of derived terms, such as cockblock, cocksucker, and cocktease, and is also often invoked in double entendres involving words and phrases that contain the phoneme but without originating from the slang term, such as cockfighting, cockpit, cocktail, and cock a doodle doo.

Etymology

The word can be traced through the Middle English cok, from Old English coc, cocc 'cock, male bird', from Proto-West Germanic *kokk, from Proto-Germanic *kukkaz, probably of onomatopoeic origin. It is cognate with Middle Dutch cocke (also meaning 'cock, male bird') and Old Norse kokkr. This is reinforced by the Old French coc, also of imitative origin. Use of the compound term pillicock to refer to the penis is attested since 1325.

Because "cock" is susceptible to numerous centuries-old meanings, it is "difficult to pinpoint the first clear use of the phallic sense", though the slang usage is generally understood to be related to the sense of a "male farmyard fowl". Other senses that appear to derive from the same origin include that of a valve or tap for controlling water flow in plumbing, and the hammer of a firearm trigger mechanism, both of which allow for semantic similarities to acts involving the penis. Two instances of the use of "cock" in the works of William Shakespeare are thought to be double entendres for the phallic sense, one being in the 1594 play The Taming of the Shrew, where Petruchio describes his crest as "a combless cock", and another in the 1599 play, Henry VI, Part 2, where a character named "Pistol" declares, "Pistol's cock is up".