cock

Universal Words noun, verb noun 1 (BrE) (also rooster AmE, BrE) [C] an adult male chicken: The cock crowed. compareHEN 2 [C] (especially in compounds) a male of any other bird: a cock pheasant seealsoPEACOCK 3 [C] (!!!, slang) a PENIS 4 [C] = STOPCOCK seealsoBALLCOCK 5 [sing.] (old-fashioned, BrE, slang) used as a friendly form of address between men seealsoHALF-COCK verb [VN] 1 to raise a part of your body so that it is upright or at an angle: The dog cocked its leg by every tree on our route (= in order to urinate). * He cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at her. * She cocked her head to one side and looked at me. * The dog stood listening, its ears cocked. 2 ~ a gun / pistol / rifle to raise the HAMMER on a gun so that it is ready to fire IDIOMS cock an ear / eye at sth/sb to look at or listen to sb/sth carefully and with a lot of attention cock a snook at sb/sth (BrE) to say or do sth that clearly shows you do not respect sb/sth: to cock a snook at authority * The firm cocked a snook at the recession by doubling its workforce. PHRASALVERBS cock sth<->up (BrE, slang) to ruin sth by doing it badly, or by making a careless or stupid mistake SYNBUNGLE: I really cocked that exam up! * She cocked up all the arrangements for the party. relatednounCOCK-UP