Forms: 5 coker-, kokerelle, 6 cokerel, cockrelle, 6–7 cocke-, cockrell, 6–8 cockrel, 7–8 cockeril(l, 6– cockerel. [app. a dim. of COCK sb.1, perh. of Anglo-Fr. origin. No such word is found in the OF. dictionaries, though Littré and Godefroy have coquereau, -elle, -et, -ette, -ille, diminutives of similar type from coque shell, and coque vessel, also cocherel, cokerel cock-seller, poultry-dealer. But the formation may have been English; the termination seems to be the same as in hoggerel, mongrel, pickerel (small pike).]
1. A young cock. arch. or dial.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 86. Cokerelle, gallus [C. gallimellus].
1465. Mann. & Househ. Exp. (1841), 296. Item, she paid for yonge kokerelles to make of capons, ix.d.
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1541), 20 a. Chickens … specially if they be cockrelles.
1622. Wither, Vanity of Youth (1633), 756. Hear how each Cockrell gives warning of day.
1725. Bailey, Erasm. Colloq., 41. If you can’t crow like an old cock, crow like a cockeril.
1798. Bloomfield, Farmer’s Boy, Autumn, 343. Many a clamorous Hen and cockrel gay.
1868. Browning, Ring & Bk., I. 1204. Both eyes shut, like the cockerel that would crow.
2. fig. Applied to a young man.
1571. R. Edwards, Damon & Pithias, in Hazl., Dodsley, IV. 68. Alas, pretty cockerel, you are too weak.
1610. Shaks., Temp., II. i. 31. The Cockrell.
1639. Massinger, Unnat. Combat, V. i. Page. Let me fight for my mistress! Servant. ’Tis in vain, Little cockerel of the kind.
1878. Tennyson, Q. Mary, I. i. 7. Thou’rt no such cockerel thyself, for thou was born i’ the tail end of old Harry the Seventh.
3. A species of fish.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. lx. (1737), 246. Cockrells … Thornbacks.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 347. Basket for fishing ox-eyed cockerel, Valencia.
4. attrib. and Comb.
1605. Chapman, All Fooles, Plays, 1873, I. 168. Their intercourse, or commerce of glances that past betwixt this cockrill-drone, and her.
1807–8. W. Irving, Salmag., xv. (1860), 354. He … ranted, like a true cockerel orator.
1856. Olmsted, Slave States, 520. The ridiculous cockerel-like manner in which they [South Carolinians] swell, strut, bluster, and bully in their confederate relations.
