cocking

«cocking» in Mova's early modern english dictionary: lifting, raising, looking sideways — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

kind

archaic word

modern equivalent

lifting, raising, looking sideways

part of speech

verb, present participle of cock

meaning for a pupil

Lifting or holding something up, such as a tail, or turning one eye to look sideways at someone. tree →

how it differs from today

Today "cock" mostly means a male bird or the action of a gun. In these sentences it means lifting up a tail or turning the head, and the sentences use that old sense.

examples

• 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) tree →
• 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) tree →

tests

rate: word (≥3 uses, never in EWT or ≥10× EWT, Wiktionary: first sense archaic); corpora 3 (Torah 0, tales 3, Sefer Yetzirah 0); EWT 0; ratio 0.3 (Torah alone 0.0); Wiktionary archaic (first sense)

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «cocking» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.