cocker

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

cocker (plural cockers)

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

   Synonym: cockfighter

2. (dated) One who hunts woodcocks.
3. (colloquial) A cocker spaniel, either of two breeds of dogs originally bred for hunting woodcocks.
4. A device that aids in cocking a crossbow.
   • 2007, Field and Stream - Volume 112, page 62:

     You have your choice of two stock-mounted cocking aids: the Acudraw 50, an integral rope cocker, or the Acudraw crank-operated device.

   • 2011, Ritchie R. Moorhead, The Kid Looks Back-Short Stories & Tall Tales, page 48:

     The down side is that they are hard to draw without special lever cockers.

   • 2013, Todd A. Kuhn, Shooter's Bible Guide to Bowhunting:

     The standard default cocking mechanism is the rope cocker.

From Middle English coker (“a quiver, boot”) from Old English cocer (“quiver, case”) from Proto-West Germanic *kukur (“container, case”), said to be from Hunnic,[1] possibly from Proto-Mongolic *kökexür (“leather vessel for liquids”). More at quiver.

cocker (plural cockers)

1. A rustic high shoe; half-boot.
2. (obsolete) A quiver.

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. (UK, informal) Friend, mate.
   • 1993, Arnold Wesker, 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, Sue Townsend, 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, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ecclesiasticus 30:9:

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

   • 1879, Jean Ingelow, chapter 1, in Sarah De Berenger‎, Boston: Roberts Brothers, page 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.

• cosset, pamper, posset; see also Thesaurus:pamper

• cocker up

• recock

From English.

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.kœʁ/, /kɔ.kɛʁ/

• Audio

  (file)

cocker m (plural cockers)

1. cocker spaniel

• “cocker”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Pseudo-anglicism, a clipping of English cocker spaniel.

cocker m (invariable)

1. cocker spaniel

Borrowed from French cocker.

cocker m (plural cockeri)

1. cocker spaniel