? Obs. Forms: 6 cok all, 6–8 cock-all, 7 cockeall, coccal, cockle, 7–8 cockall, 7–9 cockal. [app. it was orig. two words cock all; but no evidence as to the derivation appears to have come down.]
1. The ‘knuckle-bone’ or astragalus; esp. that of a sheep, etc., used for playing with (see 2).
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 161 b. The bone, called in Greke astragalos, and in English Cok all.
1648. Herrick, Hesper. The Temple. A little transverce bone; Which boyes and bruckel’d children call (Playing for points and pins) cockall.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais (1807), I. 216. The tables and cards, with a deal of cock-alls, mumblety-pegs, and wheels of fortune.
1690. W. Walker, Idiom. Anglo-Lat., 396. See where the cockals (dice) are (vide ubi tali sint).
2. A game played with ‘knuckle bones’; ‘dibs.’ Also, a game played by the ancients with these bones marked like dice (but on four sides only); Lat. ludus talaris.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., I. (1589), 392. Lysander [said] that children must be deceived with the play of cock-all, and men with othes.
1611. Cotgr., Tales, Dice; also, the game tearmed Cockall.
1613. T. Godwin, Rom. Antiq. (1658), 113. An huckle-bone, such wherewith children play cockall.
1696. Kennett, Romæ Antiq. (1713), 249. The Greeks and Romans had two sorts of games at dice, the ludus talorum, or play at cockall, and the ludus tessararum, or what we call dice.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), I. The game at cock all, Ludus talaris. Ibid., V. Astragalus, the huckle-bone. Meton. the play at cockal, dice, or tables.
1820. W. Tooke, trans. Lucian, I. 549, note. Some games that were in use at Athens, as dice, cockal, odd and even.
3. Comb. cockal-bone = COCKAL 1.
1606. Holland, Sueton., Annot. 36. To cast the Dice or cockall bones.
1613. T. Godwin, Rom. Antiq. (1658), 115. When all four cock-all-bones appeared … all with different faces.
1847–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat., IV. 721/1. The bones of the tarsus in the horse are, 1st, the astragalus, or ‘cockal-bone,’ as it it vulgarly named.
