📖 C — The English dictionary · page 43

coaxing — Everyday, meaning 1: Gently persuading someone to do something by being kind, patient and pleasant.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (adjective) Gentle and persuading: «a coaxing voice».↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Getting something to work or move by careful, gentle handling: «coaxing a fire to light».↗ Example: After a lot of coaxing, the kitten came out from under the sofa.↗ · She spoke in a coaxing voice.↗ · The Rat was coaxing the Mole to tell his trouble.↗ · It took some coaxing to get my brother into the cold sea.↗ · Dad was coaxing the old car to start.↗ · With gentle coaxing, the shy pupil read her poem aloud.↗ · The Mouse did not need much coaxing, for he was very anxious to see the world and everything in it.↗

cob — Everyday, meaning 1: A cob, or corncob, is the long middle part of an ear of corn (maize) that the kernels grow on: corn on the cob.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A cob is a male swan (a female is a pen, a baby is a cygnet).↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (UK) A cob is a small round loaf of bread, or in some areas a bread roll.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: A cob is a strong, short-legged horse.↗ Everyday, meaning 5: Cob is a mix of clay, straw and water used to build walls of old houses.↗ Example: We ate buttery corn on the cob at the barbecue.↗ · The cob swan hissed to protect the cygnets.↗ · (UK, Midlands) Can I have a cheese cob, please?↗ · The farmer rode a sturdy cob.↗ · Old Devon cottages are made of cob.↗ · The baker sold a big round cob loaf.↗ · De pig dat runs off wid de year er corn gits little mo' dan de cob.↗

cobalt — Everyday, meaning 1: Cobalt is a hard, silvery-grey metal; it is a chemical element.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Cobalt blue is a deep, bright blue colour made from cobalt and used in paints and glass.↗ Example: Cobalt is a metal that is attracted to magnets.↗ · The artist painted the sky in cobalt blue.↗ · The vase was made of deep cobalt glass.↗ · Some batteries contain cobalt.↗ · Iron, nickel and cobalt are magnetic metals.↗ · She wore a cobalt blue dress to the party.↗

cobble — Everyday, meaning 1: To cobble is to mend old shoes, especially by hand.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To cobble is to put something together roughly, from odd pieces.↗ Example: He cobbles old shoes for the village.↗ · I cobbled this story together from three books.↗ · We cobbled a tent from sticks and sheets.↗

cobbler — Everyday, meaning 1: A cobbler is a person who mends shoes.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (cooking) A cobbler is a fruit pudding baked with a thick crust on top.↗ Example: The cobbler mended the boy's boots.↗ · The cobbler sat at his bench all day.↗ · We had apple cobbler for pudding.↗

cobbling — Everyday, meaning 1: Cobbling is the work of mending old shoes.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Cobbling can also mean roughly putting things together from odd parts.↗ Example: He was sent to learn cobbling.↗ · The cobbling took him all morning.↗ · His cobbling of the old tale was not very neat.↗

cobra — Everyday, meaning 1: A cobra is a large, very poisonous snake from Africa and Asia that can spread the skin of its neck into a wide hood when it is in danger or angry.↗ Example: The cobra raised its head and spread its hood.↗ · A king cobra is the longest venomous snake in the world.↗ · Cobras live in hot parts of Africa and Asia.↗ · The spitting cobra can shoot venom at its enemies.↗ · In the story, the mongoose fought the cobra.↗ · The zookeeper fed the cobra from behind thick glass.↗ · When the cobra runs for her life, she goes like a whip-lash flicked across a horse’s neck.↗

cobweb — Everyday, meaning 1: A cobweb is the fine sticky thread net that a spider spins to catch insects.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: In talk, «cobwebs» can mean old, silly ideas that are not true.↗ Example: The fly was caught in the cobweb.↗ · The attic was full of dusty cobwebs.↗ · Are all these tales just cobwebs and moontalk?↗

coca — Everyday, meaning 1: Coca is a bush that grows in the Andes mountains of South America; its leaves are chewed or made into tea by local people to help with tiredness and mountain sickness.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Coca leaves are also used to make the illegal and very dangerous drug cocaine.↗ Example: Farmers in Bolivia grow coca on the mountainsides.↗ · Visitors to the Andes may drink coca tea for altitude sickness.↗ · Coca leaves have been chewed in the Andes for thousands of years.↗ · Cocaine, an illegal drug, is made from coca leaves.↗ · The name Coca-Cola comes from coca leaves and kola nuts.↗ · The coca bush has small oval leaves.↗ · Growing coca is controlled by law in many countries.↗

coccyx — Everyday, meaning 1: The small bone at the very bottom of the spine, made of tiny bones joined together; also called the tailbone.↗ Example: The coccyx is at the bottom of your spine.↗ · I fell on the ice and hurt my coccyx.↗ · Another name for the coccyx is the tailbone.↗ · Scientists think the coccyx is a leftover from a tail.↗ · The coccyx helps hold muscles in place when you sit.↗

cochin — Everyday, meaning 1: A large, fluffy breed of chicken with feathers growing down over its legs and feet, first brought to Britain from Asia in the 1800s.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (a place name) Cochin, the old English name of Kochi, a port city in the state of Kerala in south-west India, famous for spices and fishing nets.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (a place name) Cochin China, an old French name for the southern part of Vietnam.↗ Example: Our neighbour keeps a fluffy Cochin hen in her garden.↗ · Cochin chickens have feathers right down to their toes.↗ · The Cochin was so calm that the little ones could stroke it.↗ · Ships sailed to Cochin to buy pepper and spices.↗ · Cochin is now called Kochi.↗ · We saw the big Chinese fishing nets of Kochi in a geography video.↗ · There are two Cochin Chinese amongst them; they wear feathers on their legs, and are well educated.↗

cochineal — Everyday, meaning 1: A deep red dye made from tiny scale insects that live on prickly pear cacti, used to colour food, drinks, make-up and cloth.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: The insect itself.↗ Example: Cochineal makes a bright red colour.↗ · The pink icing was coloured with cochineal.↗ · Cochineal comes from tiny insects that live on cacti.↗ · The Aztecs used cochineal to dye cloth.↗ · Vegetarians check labels for cochineal.↗ · It takes thousands of insects to make a little cochineal.↗

cochlea — Everyday, meaning 1: The cochlea is a small, spiral-shaped tube in the inner ear, shaped like a snail shell and filled with liquid.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: It turns sound vibrations into nerve signals that travel to the brain so we can hear.↗ Example: The cochlea is shaped like a snail shell.↗ · Sound makes the liquid in the cochlea move.↗ · Hair cells in the cochlea send signals to the brain.↗ · Very loud music can damage the cochlea.↗ · My cousin has a cochlear implant that helps him hear.↗ · The cochlea is in the inner ear, deep inside the skull.↗ · Wear ear defenders at loud events to protect your cochlea.↗

cock — Everyday, meaning 1: A cock is an adult male chicken (a rooster); also the male of some other birds.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To cock your head or ear is to tilt it or lift it, often to listen.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To cock a gun is to get it ready to fire.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (rude) A slang word for a man's private part; also a rude insult.↗ Everyday, meaning 5: (UK, informal, old) A friendly word: «All right, cock?».↗ Everyday, meaning 6: A cock can also be a weathervane: a metal rooster on a roof that turns to show which way the wind blows.↗ Example: The cock crowed at sunrise.↗ · The dog cocked its head when I whistled.↗ · Before the cock crows, Peter will deny Jesus, the Bible says.↗ · The hens and the cock live in the back garden.↗ · He cocked an ear to listen at the door.↗ · (rude) The older boys called him a cock, and the teacher stepped in.↗

cockatoo — Everyday, meaning 1: A cockatoo is a large parrot with a crest of feathers on its head that it can raise and lower.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Most cockatoos live wild in Australia and nearby islands; many are white, pink, grey or black.↗ Example: A cockatoo raised its yellow crest and screeched.↗ · A flock of white cockatoos landed on the school oval in Sydney.↗ · Our neighbour's cockatoo can say «hello» and «good boy».↗ · Cockatoos crack nuts with their strong curved beaks.↗ · Some pet cockatoos live longer than their owners.↗ · The black cockatoo has red feathers in its tail.↗ · In class we compared a cockatoo with a parrot from South America.↗

cockatrice — Everyday, meaning 1: (old use, in fairy tales) A cockatrice is a made-up monster, like a snake with a cock's head, whose look was said to kill.↗ Example: The cockatrice hissed at the knight.↗ · "Does it matter?" said the cockatrice.↗ · The cockatrice guarded the old well.↗

cockchafer — Everyday, meaning 1: A large brown European beetle, also called a May bug or doodlebug, that flies clumsily on spring evenings and buzzes loudly.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Its young, a fat white grub that lives in the soil and eats plant roots.↗ Example: A cockchafer bumped against our window in the evening.↗ · The cockchafer has fan-shaped feelers.↗ · Its grubs live underground for years eating roots.↗ · People also call the cockchafer a May bug.↗ · The cockchafer buzzed loudly and flew in a wobbly line.↗ · Farmers once thought cockchafers were a pest because the grubs ate crops.↗ · We drew the life cycle of the cockchafer in science.↗ · When older, she would take cockchafers and beetles, and stick pins through them.↗

cockcrow — Everyday, meaning 1: Cockcrow is the early morning time when the cock (rooster) first crows, at dawn.↗ Example: She woke them early, at cockcrow.↗ · The farmer rose at cockcrow.↗ · She picked up pears till cockcrow.↗

cockerel — Everyday, meaning 1: A cockerel is a young male chicken.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: In everyday speech it means any male chicken, a rooster.↗ Example: The cockerel crowed at sunrise.↗ · Our cockerel has a red comb and a long tail.↗ · Hens lay eggs, but cockerels don't.↗ · The weathervane had a metal cockerel on top.↗ · The cockerel chased the cat out of the yard.↗ · Tottenham football club has a cockerel badge.↗

cockeyed — Everyday, meaning 1: (informal) Crooked, not straight or level, like a cockeyed picture.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (informal) Silly or not sensible, like a cockeyed plan.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (old-fashioned, can be unkind) Having eyes that look in different directions; cross-eyed.↗ Example: The picture on the wall is cockeyed.↗ · His hat sat cockeyed on his head.↗ · That's a cockeyed idea; it'll never work.↗ · The fence leans at a cockeyed angle.↗ · The cartoon cat looked cockeyed after the bump.↗

cocking — Early Modern English, meaning 1: Lifting or holding something up, such as a tail, or turning one eye to look sideways at someone.↗ Example: But do what they might, cats or poison, terrier or traps, there seemed to be more rats than ever, and every day a fresh rat was cocking his tail or pricking his whiskers.↗ (More English Fairy Tales) · On his return he strutted up to his mother with the peculiar little hop and kick which was his way of walking, and cocking his one eye at her in a very bold way he said:↗ (The Green Fairy Book)

cockle — Everyday, meaning 1: A small edible shellfish with two ribbed, heart-shaped shells, found in sand on beaches.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (idiom) «It warms the cockles of my heart» means it makes me feel happy and loved.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A small light boat (also called a cockleshell).↗ Example: We found empty cockle shells on the beach.↗ · Cockles bury themselves in wet sand.↗ · Molly Malone sold cockles and mussels in Dublin.↗ · Your kind letter warmed the cockles of my heart.↗ · People in Wales still gather cockles at low tide.↗ · The tiny cockle bobbed on the waves.↗

cockney — Everyday, meaning 1: A person from the East End of London, traditionally someone born within the sound of the Bow Bells church.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: The accent and dialect of London's East End, which drops some h sounds and uses «rhyming slang».↗ Example: He was born in the East End, a true Cockney.↗ · «Apples and pears» means stairs in Cockney rhyming slang.↗ · She speaks with a Cockney accent.↗ · Cockneys often drop the h: «'ello».↗ · «Use your loaf» is Cockney for «use your head».↗ · Bert in «Mary Poppins» has a Cockney accent.↗

cockpit — Everyday, meaning 1: The front part of an aeroplane, where the pilot sits and flies it.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: The small space where the driver sits in a racing car, or the steering area of a small boat or spaceship.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (old) A pit or ring where cockfights were held.↗ Example: The pilot waved from the cockpit.↗ · We were allowed to visit the cockpit after landing.↗ · The racing driver climbed into the cockpit.↗ · The cockpit had hundreds of buttons and switches.↗ · The astronaut checked the controls in the cockpit.↗ · The cockpit door is locked during the flight.↗

cockroach — Everyday, meaning 1: A cockroach is a large brown or black insect with long feelers that lives in warm, dirty places and can spread germs.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (insult) Calling a person a cockroach is very rude and hateful.↗ Example: A cockroach ran across the kitchen floor.↗ · Cockroaches like warm, dark places.↗ · Clean up crumbs so you don't get cockroaches.↗ · A cockroach has six legs and two long feelers.↗ · Some cockroaches can fly.↗ · The museum has giant hissing cockroaches.↗