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Cockney

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One born within sound of Bow-bells, London; one possessing London peculiarities of speech, etc.; one wholly ignorant of country sports, country life, farm animals, plants, and so on.

Camden says the Thames was once called “the Cockney.”

The word has been spelt Cockeney, Cockaneys, Cocknell, etc. “Cocknell” would be a little cock. “Puer in deliciis matris nutritus,” Anglice, a kokenay, a pampered child. “Niais” means a nestling, as faucon niais, and if this is the last syllable of “Cockney,” it confirms the idea that the word means an enfant gâté.

Wedgwood suggests cocker, (to fondle), and says a cockerney or cockney is one pampered by city indulgence, in contradistinction to rustics hardened by outdoor work. (Dutch, kokkeler, to pamper; French, coqueliner, to dangle.)

Chambers in his Journal derives the word from a French poem of the thirteenth century, called The Land of Cocagne, where the houses were made of barley-sugar and cakes, the streets paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods without requiring money in payment. The French, at a very early period, called the English cocagne men, i.e. bons vivants (beef and pudding men).

5


Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels, when she put them into the paste alive.”—Shakespeare: Lear, ii. 4.

The king of cockneys. A master of the revels chosen by students of Lincoln’s Inn on Childermas Day (Dec. 28th).

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Cockatrice
Cocked Hat (A)
Cocked-hat Club (The)
Cocker
Cockie or Cocky
Cockle Hat
Cockle Shells
Cockles
Cockles of the Heart
Cockledemoy (A)
Cockney
Cockney School
Cockpit of Europe
Cockshy (A)
Cockswain
Cocktail
Cocqcigrues
Cocytus [Ko-kytus]
Codds
Codille
Codlin’s your Friend, not Short

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Cockaigne (Land of)

See Also:

Cockney