Chapter Cobalt to Cock Lane Ghost of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Cock and Bull Story A corruption of a concocted and bully story. The catch-pennies hawked about the streets are still called cocks- i.e. concocted things. Bully is the Danish bullen (exaggerated), our bull- rush (an exaggerated rush), bull-frog, etc.
   Another etymology may be suggested. The idol Nergal was the most common idol of the ancient Phoenicians, Indians, and Persians, and Nergal means a dunghill cock. The Egyptian bull is equally notorious under the name of Osiris. A cock-and-bull story may therefore mean a myth, in reference to the mythological fables of Nergal and Osiris.
   The French equivalents are faire un coq à l'âne and un conie de ma mère Voie (a mother goose tale).

Cock and Pie (By). We meet with cock's bones, cock's wounds, cock's mother, cock's body, cock's passion, etc., where we can have no doubt that the word is a minced oath, and stands for the sacred name which should never be taken in vain. The Pie is the table or rule in the old Roman offices, showing how to find out the service for each day, called by the Greeks pinax (an index). The latter part of the oath is equivalent to “the Mass book.”

“By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.”- Shakespeare: 2 Henry IV., act v. 1.

   Cock and Pie (as a public-house sign) is probably “The Cock and Magpie.”

Cock of Hay (A) or a haycock. A small heap of hay thrown up temporarily. (German, Kocke, a heap of hay; Norwegian, kok, a heap.)

Cock of the North The Duke of Gordon. So called on a monument erected to his honour at Fochabers, in Aberdeenshire. (Died 1836.)

Cock of the Walk The dominant bully or master spirit. The place where barn-door fowls are fed is called the walk, and if there is more than one cock they will fight for the supremacy of this domain.

Cock-a-hoop or Cock-a-houp. To sit cock-a-houp. Boastful, defiant, like a game cock with his houpe or crest erect; eagerly expectant. (French, coq à huppe.)

“And having routed a whole troop,
With victory was cock-a-hoop.”
Butler: Hudibras, i. 3.

Cock apace Set off as fast as you can run. A cock is a tap through which liquor runs. “To cock” is to walk lightly or nimbly.

“If storms be nigh then cock apace,” says Tusser (1174).

Cockboat or Cockle Boat.. A small boat made of a wicker frame, and covered with leather or oil-cloth. The Welsh fishers used to carry them on their backs. (Welsh, cwch, a boat; French, coche, a passage boat; Irish, coca; Italian, cocca; Norwegian, kog, a cockboat.)

Cock-crow The Hebrews divided the night into four watches: 1, The “beginning of the watches” or “even” (Lam. ii. 19); 2, “The middle watch” or “midnight” (Judg. vii. 19); 3, “The cock-crowing;” 4, “The morning watch” or “dawning” (Exod. xiv. 24).

“Ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning.”- Mark xiii. 35.

    The Romans divided the night into sixteen parts, each one hour and a- half, beginning at midnight. The third of these divisions (3 a.m.) they called gallicinium, the time when cocks begin to crow; the next was conticinium, when they ceased to crow; and fifth was diluculum, dawn.
   Probably the Romans sounded the hour on a trumpet (bugle) three times, and if so it would explain the diversity of the Gospels: “Before the cock crow” (John xiii. 38, Luke xxii. 34, and Matt. xxvi. 34); but “Before the cock crow twice ” (Mark xiv. 30)- that is, before the “bugle” has finished sounding.
   Apparitions vanish at cock crow. This is a Christian superstition, the cock being the watch-bird placed on church spires, and therefore sacred.

“The morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it [the Ghost] shrunk in haste away,
And vanished from our sight.”
Shakespeare: Hamlet, i. 2.

Cock-eye A squint. Cock-eyed, having a squint; cross-eyed. (Irish and Gaelic, caog, a squint; “caogshuil,” squint-eyed.)