cock-up

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cock-up (plural cock-ups)

1. (mildly vulgar slang) A mistake.
2. (obsolete, Britain, printers' slang) A superior letter. A lower-case letter placed above the baseline and made smaller than ordinary script; traditionally used in abbreviations.
   • 1824, Johnson, John, Typographia, volume 2, page 33:

     The first word of every section or chapter is generally put in small capitals, after a small neat cock-up letter.

3. (obsolete, Scotland) A roll or twist of hair worn at the nape of the neck; a bun.
   • 1888, Mackay, Charles, A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch‎, page 30:

     Cockernonie, a gathering up of the hair of women, after a fashion similar to that of the modern "chignon," and sometimes called a "cock-up." Mr. Kirkton, of Edinburgh, preaching against "cock-ups"—of which chignons were the representatives a quarter of a century ago—said: "I have been all this year preaching against the vanity of women, yet I see my own daughter in the kirk even now with as high a 'cock-up' as any one of you all."

• (mistake): balls-up (mildly taboo slang), foul-up, fuck-up (taboo slang), screw-up (slang)
• (hairstyle): bun, chignon

• cock up
• cocked-up

• (superior letter): Farmer, John Stephen (1891) Slang and Its Analogues‎, volume 2, page 145