subs. (colloquial).—An idle or silly story. [Presumably from some old legend of a cock and a bull, apropos to which it should be noted that the French equivalent is coq-à-l’âne, a cock-and-ass.]
1603. JOHN DAY, Law Trickes, Act iv., p. 66. Didst marke what a tale of a COCK AND A BULL, he tolde my father whilst I made thee and the rest away.
1759. STERNE, Tristram Shandy, vol. IX., ch. xxxiii. L—d! said my mother, what is all this about? A COCK AND A BULL, said Yorick—and one of the best of its kind I ever heard.
1857. O. W. HOLMES, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, ch. v. That sounds like a COCK-AND-BULL STORY, said the young fellow whom they call John. I abstained from making Hamlet’s remarks to Horatio and continued.
1874. E. WOOD, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., xxiv., p. 432. ‘Giving ear to a COCK-AND-BULL STORY that can’t be true!’
