Forms: 4–5 cokenay, cokeney, (also kok-), 5–6 coknay(e, 6 cokney, cocknaye, -naie, 6–7 cockeney, cockny(e, -nie, 7 kockney, 6– cockney. [ME. coken-ey, -ay, app. = coken of cocks + ey, ay (OE. æʓ) egg; lit. ‘cocks’ egg’: see note after 7.]
† 1. An egg: the egg of the common fowl, hen’s egg; or perh. one of the small or misshapen eggs occasionally laid by fowls, still popularly called in some parts ‘cocks’ eggs,’ in Ger. hahneneier. Obs.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. VII. 272. And I sigge, bi my soule, I haue no salt Bacon, Ne no Cokeneyes, bi Crist, Colopus to maken [1377 B. VI. 287 kokeney, 1393, C. IX. 309 Nouht a cokeney].
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 36. Men say He that comth euery daie, shall haue a cocknaie. He that comth now and then, shall haue a fatte hen. But I gat not so muche in comyng séelde when, As a good hens fether, or a poore egshell.
a. 1600. Tourn. Tottenham, 227. At that fest were thei seruyd in a rich aray, Euery fyve and fyve had a cokeney.
[1598–1611. Florio, Caccherelli, cacklings of hens; also egs (1611 egges), as we say cockanegs. Cf. Cock’s egg, COCK1 23. In Surrey the saying goes, ‘When the cock lays eggs, then the hen lays rashers of bacon.’]
† 2. ‘A child that sucketh long,’ ‘a nestle-cock,’ ‘a mother’s darling’; a cockered child, pet, minion; ‘a child tenderly brought up’; hence, a squeamish or effeminate fellow, ‘a milksop.’ Obs.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Reeves T., 288. When this jape is tald another day, I sal be hald a daf, a cokenay [v.r. cokeneye].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 86. Coknay [v.r. cokeney]. Ibid., 281. Kokeney, corinutus, coconellus, vel cucunellus (et hec duo nomina sunt ficta, et derisorie dicta); delicius.
1483. Cath. Angl., 71. A coknay, ambro, mammotropus.
1531. Elyot, Gov., I. xviii. I speake nat this in dispraise of the faukons, but of them whiche kepeth them like coknayes.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 549/2. As would make vs wene that some wer goddes wanton cokneis … that whatsoeuer thei doe nothing coulde displease him.
1540. Hyrde, trans. Vives’ Instr. Chr. Wom. (1592), Cc viij. A common Prouerbe to cal those widows cockneys, that be ill brought vp children.
1573. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 183. Some cockneies with cocking are made verie fooles, fit neither for prentise, for plough, nor for schooles.
1580. Baret, Alv., C 729. A cockney, a childe tenderly brought up, a dearling…. A cockney, after Saint Augustin, a childe that sucketh long.
1592. Nashe, P. Penilesse (1842), 18. A young heyre, or cockney, that is his mothers darling, if hee haue playde the waste-good at the Innes of the Court, or about London.
1598. Meres, Wit’s Treasury, 59 b. So many brought up with great cockering, as Cockneys bee.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., IV. i. 15. I am affraid this great lubber the World will proue a Cockney.
1607. Dekker, Knt.’s Conjur., E (Croft). Our cockering mothers, who for their labour make us to be called cockneys.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Wks., I. 77/1.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, London, II. 196. I meet with a double sense of this word Cockeney, some taking it for, i. One coaks’d or cockered, made a wanton or Nestle-cock of, delicately bred and brought up, so that when grown Men or Women, they can endure no hardship, nor comport with pains taking.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, I. (1693), 90. He was counted but a Cockney that stood in awe of his Rulers.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), V. Mammothreptus … a child sucking long, or a child wantonly brought up … a cockney.
† b. Hence (apparently), King of Cockneys: a kind of Master of the Revels chosen by the students at Lincoln’s Inn on Childermas Day (28 Dec.). Obs.
1518. in MS. Black Bk. of Lincolns Inn, III. 87 a (9 Feb., 10 Hen. VIII), Item that the kynge of cockneys should childermas day sytt and have due service … and that he and his marechall butler and constable marechall have their lawfull and honeste commandements … and that the said kynge of cockneys ne none of his officers medyll neyther in the buttry nor in the stuard of crstmas is office. (See Dugdale, Orig. Jurid., 264 ‘Grand Christmasses at Innes of Court.’)
† c. The name of this mock king is perhaps referred to in the saw recorded by Harrison as popularly current in the 16th c., and reputed to be applied contemptuously to Henry III.
a. 1577. Harrison, England, II. xiv. (1877), I. 266. As for those tales that go of … the brag of … [Hugh Bigot] that said in contempt of king Henrie the third … ‘If I were in my castell of Bungeie, Vpon the water of Wauencie, I wold not set a button by the king of Cockneie,’ I repute them but as toies. [Hence taken, more or less correctly, by Camden (Britannia ed. 2, not in 1), Fuller, Ray, etc. Fuller uncritically took the words as contemporary with Hugh Bigot, whom he further placed in the reign of Henry II. Later writers have, with as little ground, assumed Cockneie here to mean London, or the land of Cockaigne.]
† d. Sometimes applied to a squeamish, over-nice, wanton or affected woman. Obs. (Cf. 1598 attrib. in 5.)
1605. Shaks., Lear, II. iv. 123. Cry to it Nunckle, as the Cockney did to the Eeles, when she put ’em i’th’ Paste aliue, she knapt ’em o’th’ coxcombs with a sticke, and cryed downe wantons, downe.
1611. Cotgr., Coquine, a begger woman; also a cokney, simperdecockit, nice thing.
† 3. A derisive appellation for a townsman, as the type of effeminacy, in contrast to the hardier inhabitants of the country. Obs.
[1521. Whitinton, Vulg., 39. This cokneys and tytyllynges … [delicati pueri] may abide no sorrow when they come to age…. In this great cytees as London, York, Perusy and such … the children be so nycely and wantonly brought up … that comonly they can little good.]
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., III. Chem. Conclus., 11. The Country people will go neare to rob all Cocknies of their breakfasts.
c. 1600. Day, Begg. Bednell Gr., V. (1881), 108. I think you be sib to one of the London Cockneys that ask’t whether Hay-cocks were better meat broyl’d or rosted.
1604. T. Wright, Passions, Pref. Sundry of our rurall Gentlemen, are as well acquainted with the civill dealing, conversing, and practise of Citties, as many Kockneis, with the manuring of lands, and affayres of the countrey.
c. 1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Cockney … also one ignorant in Country Matters.
1739. R. Bull, trans. Dedekindus’ Grobianus, 238.
| A Cockney once did for a Clown provide, | |
| By Blood and Friendship both wer near ally’d. |
1826. Scott, Woodst., xviii. Where cockneys or bumpkins are concerned.
4. spec. One born in the city of London: strictly, (according to Minsheu) ‘one born within the sound of Bow Bells.’ Always more or less contemptuous or bantering, and particularly used to connote the characteristics in which the born Londoner is supposed to be inferior to other Englishmen.
1600. Rowlands, Lett. Humours Blood, Sat. IV. 65. I scorne … To let a Bow-bell Cockney put me downe.
1607. Dekker, Westw. Hoe, II. ii. As Frenchmen loue to be bold, Flemings to be drunke … and Irishmen to be Costermongers, so, Cocknyes (especially Shee-Cocknies) loue not Aqua-vite when ’tis good for them.
1611. Cotgr., Guespine, a waspish dame; (as our Cockney of London) a nickname for a woman of Orleans.
1617. Minsheu, Ductor, s.v., A Cockney or Cockny, applied only to one borne within the sound of Bow-bell, that is, within the City of London, which tearme came first out of this tale: That a Cittizens sonne riding with his father … into the Country … asked, when he heard a horse neigh, what the horse did his father answered, the horse doth neigh; riding farther he heard a cocke crow, and said doth the cocke neigh too? and therfore Cockney or Cocknie, by inuersion thus: incock, q. incoctus i. raw or vnripe in Country-mens affaires.
1617. Moryson, Itin., III. 53. Londiners, and all within the sound of Bow-bell, are in reproch called Cocknies, and eaters of buttered tostes.
1644. Dan O’Neile, Let. Mrq. Ormond, in Carte, Orig. Lett., I. 52. Obliged to quit Oxford at the approach of Essex and Waller with their prodigious number of cocknies.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 221. That Synods Geography was as ridiculous as a Cockneys (to whom all is Barbary beyond Brainford; and Christendome endeth at Greenwitch).
1803. S. Pegge, Anecd. Eng. Lang., 2. Not being myself a Cockney.
1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xii. He was a cockney by birth, for he had been left at the workhouse of St. Mary Axe.
1848. W. E. Forster, Diary, 16 April, in T. W. Reid, Life (1888), I. 224. The Times and the Government and all cockneys were so much alarmed.
1850. Kingsley, Alt. Locke, i. I am a cockney among cockneys.
b. One of the ‘Cockney school’: see 6 b.
1826. Blackw. Mag., XIX. Pref. 16. The nickname [Cockney] we gave them, has become a regularly established word in our literature. Lord Byron … called them by no other title than the Cockneys.
1831. Scott, in Blackw. Mag., Feb., 272. Whigs, Cockneys, Revolutionists, he furiously attack would.
B. as adj. (orig. attrib. use of the sb.).
5. Cockered, petted; effeminate; squeamish.
1573. Twyne, Æneid., XII. Ll j. That same Cocknie Phrygian knight.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. (Arb.), 39. Thus spake she to cocknye Cupido. Ibid., IV. 106. Yf a cockney dandiprat hopthumb, Prittye lad Æneas, in my court, wantoned.
1598. Meres, Wit’s Treasury, 276 b. Many Cockney and wanton women are often sicke.
1606. R. Clayton, in Lismore Papers, Ser. II. (1887), I. 102. Yf he ceased not his Cockney carriage.
6. Pertaining to or characteristic of the London Cockney.
1632. Brome, Northern Lasse, Dram. Persona, Master Widgine, a Cockney-Gentleman.
1659. T. Pecke, Parnassi Puerp., 6. To boast yourself of Cockney, you think good; Lest som should say, you were of British Bloud.
1776. G. Campbell, Philos. Rhet. (1801), I. 399. It is an idiom of the Cockney language.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Voy. Eng., Wks. II. 13. Men in ecstasies of terror, alternating with cockney conceit.
1861. Sat. Rev., 2 Feb., 112/2. The Westminster Review … describes the easy writing and comic language poured forth by popular writers on great subjects as ‘cockney chatter.’
1876. Douse, Grimm’s Law, § 54. 127. The Cockney dialect and the polite English dialect are (or were) spoken by different, but overlapping strata.
b. Cockney school: a nickname for a set of 19th-cent. writers belonging to London, of whom Leigh Hunt was taken as the representative.
1817. Lockhart, in Blackw. Mag., Oct., 38. (On the Cockney School of Poetry) If I may be permitted to have the honour of christening it, it may henceforth be referred to by the designation of The Cockney School.
1882. Mrs. Oliphant, Lit. Hist. Eng., II. 225. At a later period Hazlitt joined this literary circle, then Leigh Hunt; and it began to be assailed as the ‘Cockney School.’
7. Comb., as cockney-bred, -like adj., -land.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. II. ii. Overprecise, cockney-like, and curious in their observation of meats.
1843. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., I. 221. The only religious meeting I ever saw in cockneyland which had not plenty of scoffers.
1884. J. Payn, Thicker than Water, xvi. 127. Who know their own metropolis as well as though they had been cockney-bred.
[The derivation suggested above satisfies the form: ey, ay (ai), are regular ME. forms of egg, rhyming with the same words (day, etc.) as cokenay itself; coken genitive pl. is as in clerken coueitise, P. Pl. B. iv. 119, and in many similar instances; the use of the gen. plural is as in Ger. hühnerei, fowls’ egg, hahnenei cocks’ egg. The stress on ay retained in verse to 16th c., and supported by Minsheu’s cock neigh, also accords with this composition of the word.
Of sense 1, the meaning appears to be established by the first quot.; the constituents of a COLLOP (q.v.) were precisely bacon and an egg. This meaning also completely explains the quot. from Heywood; that from the Tournament is perhaps (as already suggested by Wright) satirical or jocose. The matter appears to be clinched by the quot. from Florio for cockan-egs. To account for the appellation, we might suppose coken-ay to be originally a child’s name for an egg (cf. what is said of coco below); but as cocks’ eggs and the equivalent Ger. hahneneier are at the present day applied in popular or dialect speech to small or malformed eggs (formerly imagined to be laid by the cock), it is not improbable that this was originally the specific sense of cokenay. The old notion that such eggs produced a serpent (see COCKATRICE) is well known; but no trace of this appears in the popular use of cokenay.
The application of either a child’s word for an egg, or of the name of a small or mis-shapen egg, as a humorous or derisive appellation for ‘a child sucking long,’ a ‘nestle-cock,’ a ‘milk sop,’ obviously explains itself; and the sense-development from 2 onward is clear and certain. A valuable contribution to the history of these senses is made by H. H. S. Croft, in the Glossary to his ed. (1883), of Elyot’s Gouernour.
An apparent parallel is the French word coco ‘a child’s name for an egg,’ also a term of endearment applied to children, and of derision applied to men: mon petit coco, quel grand coco! Coco, considered by Littré a deriv. of coq, was app. the source of coconellus (dim. of *coco, cocōnem) given in the Promp. Parv., with cucunellus, as med.L. translations of cokenay, and stated to be ‘ficta et derisorie dicta,’ ‘derisorie ficta et inventa.’ And coconellus, in turn, appears to be the origin of the 16th c. Eng. COCKNEL, given above, as an exact equivalent of cockney, senses 2, 4. On F. coco was formed the verb coqueliner ‘to dandle, cocker, fedle, pamper, make a [cockney or] wanton of (a child),’ just as dodo a word like Eng. ‘by-by’ or ‘ba-ba,’ sung to lull a child to sleep, gave dodeliner to perform this action. It is to be noted also that, from the earliest times, cokenay 2 was constantly associated with the vb. coker COCKER, both in use (see quots. in 2), and in L. and Fr. explanations e.g., ‘cokeryn, carifoveo; cokenay, carifotus,’ Promp. Parv., ‘I coker je mignotte; I bring up like a cocknaye je mignotte’ Palsgr. If cocker was, as it appears to be, a derivative of cock, this association was natural and obvious.]
Hence various nonce-wds., as Cockneian a., pertaining to, or characteristic of, a cockney. Cockneity, cockney quality. Cockneycality, anything characteristic of cockneys, a cockneyism. Cockneyese, the speech or ‘dialect’ of cockneys. Cockneyess, a female cockney. Cockneyship, the condition of a cockney (humorously as a title). Cockniac a., pertaining to cockneys, cockney.
1842. Fraser’s Mag., XXVI. 619. Peculiarities, cockneian and congenito-theatrical.
1882. Carlyle, in Century Mag., XXIV. 28. Mixed rusticity or cockneity.
1834–5. Mrs. Carlyle, Early Lett. (Ritchie), 263. Fragments of Haddington, of Comely Bank, of Craigenputtoch interweaved with cockneycalities into a very habitable whole.
1823. Blackw. Mag., XIV. 92. Stupid French books translated … into stupid Cockneyeze.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, vi. (1853), 41. Country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses.
1832. J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXXI. 958. To disenchant his cockneyship out of that audacious dream.
1843. Fraser’s Mag., XXVII. 465. ‘The ’ouse,’ as Mrs. Crump would say … in her simple Cockniac dialect.
