cocker

From cock (“a male bird, especially a rooster”) and its derivative cocking (“the hunting of gamecocks”), +‎ -er.

cocker (plural cockers)

1. One who breeds gamecocks or engages in the sport of cockfighting.

   Synonym: cockfighter

2. (dated) One who hunts woodcocks.
   1. (colloquial) A cocker spaniel, either of two breeds of dogs originally bred for hunting woodcocks.

• cocker spaniel

From Middle English coker (“a quiver, boot”) from Old English cocer (“quiver, case”) from Proto-Germanic *kukur- (“container, case”). More at quiver.

cocker (plural cockers)

1. A rustic high shoe; half-boot.

Origin uncertain. Perhaps from Middle English cokeren (“to pamper, coddle”); compare Welsh cocru (“to indulge, fondle”), French coqueliner (“to dandle, to imitate the crow of a cock, to run after the girls”), and English cockle and cock (“rooster; to spoil”).

cocker (plural cockers)

1. (Britain, informal) Friend, mate.
   • 1993, Wesker, Arnold, Bluey:

     I been to see 'im. Not pretty. Ward sister tell me 'e'll be alright but not for a while yet. Concussion. Bloody 'ell! Lucky 'e wasn't killed, lump of lead like that. Lucky for you too, cocker...

   • 2004, Townsend, Sue, Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction, →ISBN, page 361:

     He said, 'Not my cup of Darjeeling, cocker. I've been more intellectually challenged at a kiddies' swimming gala.'

• See Thesaurus:friend

• old cocker

cocker (third-person singular simple present cockers, present participle cockering, simple past and past participle cockered)

1. To make a nestle-cock of; to indulge or pamper (particularly of children).
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, King John, Act V, Scene 1,

     […] shall a beardless boy,

     A cocker’d silken wanton, brave our fields […] ?

   • 1611, King James Bible, Ecclesiasticus, xxx. 9

     Cocker thy childe, and hee ſhall make thee afraid: play with him and he will bring thee to heauinesse.

   • 1879, Jean Ingelow, Sarah De Berenger, Boston: Roberts Brothers, Chapter 1, p. 6,

     But if you was to ask your ma, she would tell you that poor folks can no ways afford to cocker themselves up as lying-in ladies do.

• cocker up

• recock

English

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.kœʁ/, /kɔ.kɛʁ/

cocker m (plural cockers)

1. cocker spaniel

• “cocker” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

cocker m (invariable)

1. cocker spaniel