1. A pit or enclosed area in which game-cocks are set to fight for sport; a place constructed for cock-fighting.
1587. Churchyard, Worth. Wales (1876), 106. The Mountaynes stand … In roundnesse such as it a Cock pit were.
1644. Quarles, Barnabas & B., 27. At a cockpit [to] leave our doubtful fortunes to the mercy of unmerciful contention.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, I. 195. A Circle dug in the Earth, like a Cockpit.
1814. W. Sketchley (title), The Cocker, containing … a variety of other useful information for the instruction of those who are attendants at the Cock Pit.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Race, Wks. (Bohn), II. 30. The animal ferocity of the quays and cockpits.
attrib. 1647. G. Hughes, Serm. St. Margaret’s, Westm., 26 May. Impious, childish, cockpit counsellors.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 3 Sept., 2/1. The cock-pit animus, apt to spring up between equal bodies in different camps.
† b. Applied to a theater; and to the PIT of a theater. Obs.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., I. Prol. 11. Can this Cock-Pit hold The vastie fields of France? Or may we cramme Within this Woodden O, the very Caskes That did affright the Ayre at Agincourt?
a. 1635. L. Digges, in Shaks. Suppl., I. 71 (N.). Let but Beatrice And Benedict be seen; lo! in a trice, Tho cockpit, galleries, boxes, all are full.
† c. spec. The Cockpit: (a) name of a theatre in London, in 17th c., on the site of a cock-pit. Obs.
a. 1635. L. Digges, in Shaks. Suppl., I. 71 (N.). On Gods name, may the Bull, or Cockpit have Your lame blank verse to keep you from the grave.
1660. Pepys, Diary, 11 Oct. Mr. Salisbury … took Mr. Creed and me to the Cockpitt to see ‘The Moore of Venice,’ which was well done. Ibid. (1662–3), 5 Jan. To the Cockpitt, where we saw ‘Claracilla,’ a poor play, done by the King’s house.
† (b) The name of the block of buildings on or near the site of the Cockpit erected by Henry VIII. opposite Whitehall, London, used from the seventeenth century as government offices; hence put familiarly for ‘the Treasury,’ and ‘the Privy Council chambers.’ Obs.
[1598. Stow, Surv. Lond., 374 (in J. Marshall, Ann. Tennis, 65). The saide White hall. On the right hand bee diuers fayre Tennis courtes, bowling Allies, and a Cockepit, all built by King Henry the eight.]
1649–50. Commons’ Jrnl., 25 Feb., in Carlyle, Cromwell, II. 124. Resolved that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland have the use of the Lodgings called the Cockpit.
1659–60. Pepys, Diary, 20 Feb. My Lord of Dorset and another Lord, talking of getting another place at the Cockpit.
1698. Luttrell, Brief Rel., IV. 329. The council chamber, treasury, and duke Shrewsbury’s offices, are to be at the Cockpitt, till Whitehal be rebuilt.
1711. R. Orlebar, Lett., in 3rd Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. 276 a. Mar. 8 … Just now I am told of an odd passage happened in Councill at the cockpitt to-night.
1773. Burke, Let. Sir C. Bingham, Wks. IX. 140. For the sake of gratifying the schemes of a transitory Administration of the Cockpit or the Castle.
1830. Greville, Mem., 22 Nov. (1874), II. xii. 70. He [Brougham] threatened to sit often at the Cockpit, in order to check Leach, who, though a good judge in his own Court, was good for nothing in a Court of Appeal.
1843. Knight, London, V. 291. But to return to the Cock-pit…. This is the part of the Treasury buildings which fronts Whitehall.
2. fig. A place where a contest is fought out.
1612. T. Adams, Serm., Gallants Burden (1616), 19. Behold France made a Cocke-pitte for Massacres by the vnciuill ciuill Warres hereof.
1676. Marvell, Gen. Councils, Wks. 1875, IV. 117. It seemed like an ecclesiastical cock-pit, and a man might have laid wagers either way.
1858. Murray’s Hand-Bk. N. Germany, 158/1. The part of Belgium through which our route lies, has been called the ‘Cock-pit’ of Europe.
3. Naut. The after part of the orlop deck of a man-of-war; forming ordinarily the quarters for the junior officers, and in action devoted to the reception and care of the wounded.
1706. Phillips, Cockpit, in a man of war, is a Place on the lower Floor, or Deck.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Cock-pit of a ship of war, the apartments of the surgeon and his mates, being the place where the wounded men are dressed.
1813. Southey, Nelson, II. 258. The cockpit was crowded with wounded and dying men; over whose bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple, x. Send him down to the surgeon in the cock-pit.
b. transf.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Aug., 375/1. Sitting in the cockpit of my canoe.
4. In the West Indies: see quot. 1803.
1803. R. C. Dallas, Hist. Maroons, I. ii. 39. The grand object of a Maroon chief in war was to take a station in some glen, or, as it is called in the West Indies, Cockpit, enclosed by rocks and mountains nearly perpendicular, and to which the only practicable entrance is by a very narrow defile. Ibid., I. vi. 198. The practicability of advancing upon an enemy in these cockpits is not to be judged of by other feats of war.
