[Origin doubtful: a corresponding Scotch name hen-loft for a loft over a barn, etc., into which fowls ascend by a ‘hen-ladder,’ suggests that the derivation is from the fowl. But it is not impossible that cock has some fig. or transferred sense. Antony à Wood wrote it cockle-loft.]
A small upper loft; a small apartment under the very ridge of the roof to which the access is usually by a ladder; ‘the room over the garret’ (J.).
1589. in Wadley, Bristol Wills (1886), 259. A spruce chest wch ys in the Cocklofte.
1591. Percyvall, Sp. Dict., Desvan de casa, a garret or cockloft, solarium.
1640–4. Owen O’Conally, Irish Conspir., in Rushw., Hist. Coll., III. (1692), I. 400. In the end, the Sheriffs of the City … found him hidden in a Cock-loft, in an obscure House.
a. 1661. Holyday, Juvenal, 56/2. The cock-lofts of mean mens houses, to which they usually ascended by a ladder.
a. 1672. Wood, Life (1848), 33. His Chamber, which was a cockleloft over the common gate of that college. Ibid. (1673), in Pref. Ath. Oxon. (1813), p. lxxiii. I was so great a lover of antiquities that I loved to live in an old cockleloft rather than in a spacious chamber.
1751. Johnson, Rambl., No. 117, ¶ 13. You sometimes quit the garret, and ascend into the cock-loft.
1865. Sat. Rev., 8 July, 48/1. The notion of a prince having to climb into a cockloft approaches the tragic.
fig. 1667. H. More, Div. Dial., iv. § 29. Cuphophron has been so mewed up in his Philosophical and Metaphysical Cock-loft.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, V. viii. (1737), 32. Unnestle the Angels from their Cockloft.
1859. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., II. lxxxii. 42. The right … of every man to view the past from his own cock-loft.
