On the convoluted origin of words
Sometimes things are not what they seem.
That’s true with a lot of things, but with words in the English language, it’s more common than not that a word might be so convoluted in origin as to be bordering on the nonsensical.
For example, antbirds are a group of over 230 species of birds. Why are they called antbirds? They eat ants? No.
Antbirds live in South America, home to the Army ant. These ants conduct “raids’ where massive numbers of ants boil out of the colony and go foraging in groups of tens of thousands of ants. Army ants (of which there are some 200 species) are selective about prey and can’t always consume the things they catch and kill. Yet, they have trails that can be over 20 meters wide, stripped clean of vegetation and the prey they either catch, or which escapes.
Antbirds follow these trails, picking up insects left in their wake – and catching stray prey that escapes from the ant’s trail.
Or, like the tilting bratt pan, which most people have never heard of, and which owes its name solely to the kippbratpfanne (tilting fry/roast/bake skillet) in German or a mispronunciation of the Dutch term “braadslede” (roasting/frying sled/tray). (Although in Dutch, the term refers to both the tilting bratt pan and the less mechanically wonderful and more mundane baking tray).
The origin of words can be decidedly complex and sometimes misleading.
In cases where two words are jammed together to create a compound noun, there’s almost never a logical pattern which you could use to determine what the thing is without already knowing what the thing is.
For example:
- Peanut Oil
- Linseed Oil
- Baby Oil
But it also applies to a lot of other things, some of which can be pretty surprisingly complex. Like, the word cock. Especially when you start to look at compounds:
- Stopcock – A valve
- Petcock – Also a valve
- Haycock – A pile of hay
So, flip it around and,
- Cockblock – To prevent someone’s sexual conquest
- Cocktail – A word that means either a mixed beverage, a mix of substances, or a mix of food – stemming from the sense that animals in the 17th century (horses, dogs) that were not used for breeding had their tales docked, making them flat like that of a rooster (cock-tailed) – which became synonymous with the urban socialites of London in the 17th century, which went on to become synonymous with the food and drinks those socialites consumed – and then that went on to become “a mixture”.
- Cockroach – A mangling of cucaracha
- Cockscomb – The comb belonging to the rooster
- Cockpit – A small room resembling a cock fighting pit
- Cockchafer – A beetle thought to be a great fighter
Of course, there are two roots for the word in the English language.
The first:
- A small pile of (hay) with vertical sides and a rounded top
- The act of creating such a pile
That origin comes from the Swedis koka, as in “Clod”. It also largely fell out of use and most people today would just say “pile”.
But then there’s another meaning, originating in Old English, French, Latin, and others – where it appears to come from a much older root.
- The male of the domestic fowl and/or gallinaceous bird
- The penis
- A mechanism which turns with a lever attached to the turning part (found in guns, faucets, etc.)
- A balance indicator (mechanical)
- A tilt or turn, usually at an angle
So which of these definitions comes first?
The bird, of course.
The word cocc is Old English, referring to the male of a gallinaceous fowl (pheasant, domesticated chicken, you name it). It moved into French at about the same time as Coq. In English, it went through transformations, coke, cok, colq, and it came to the uh happy ending of the modern spelling of cock in the early modern period.
Male chickens have been known as cocks or cockerels since the 12th century.
And, cock was used to describe males of the human species almost as early. A scamp (a young ne’er do well) was known as a “cock” in the Middle Ages. Cock even became a generic term for “dude” or “chap”, and it would not have been unlikely that Shakespeare referred to his drinking buddies as “old cock” (albeit in the 16th century, which is beyond the scope of most of this blog). And that relates purely to the usage of the word in “cockerel”. Anyone with exposure to the proud strut of a rooster across his domain will instantly bring it to mind when young men try to show off to each other – and that’s been true for a very large bit of history.
Even the word cocker spaniel is related to the bird. “Cocker” used to be a person who bred woodcocks. The “Cocker” spaniel, the dog of choice for hunting them.
Of course, the next phase of the evolution of the word is entirely dependent on a simple bit of mechanical instrument used to show the direction of the wind. The weathervane.
Weathervanes have been in use for a significant portion of recorded history. China has records of them in use since 139 BC. And, for much of that history, they’ve been shaped after the birds that tended to strut and preen on those rooftops. The male domestic fowl.
In the ninth century, Pope Nicholas I ordered that a weathervane with a cockerel be placed on every church steeple, in all of Europe. His rationalization, the cockerel was the bird of Saint Peter, and referenced by Jesus. Every village and hamlet large enough to have a church suddenly sported the male domestic fowl on its roof. And so, the weathercock was born.
In fact, weathervanes were more commonly referred to as “weathercocks” than as vanes, the “wedurekoke” dominated in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries and soon, it became tradition to shape vanes like a cockerel, even if you weren’t placing them on a church.
It was, coincidentally around this time that the Rennaissance and its wonders of scientific innovation swept many parts of Europe. Technologies like valves, which had been left largely untouched for close to 1,000 years were suddenly innovated upon and reworked.
Two separate handled valves were introduced in this period, both theoretically taking their name from the swinging mechanism of the vane or the fact that a small percentage of these valves resembled the head and comb of a chicken OR the vane itself.
The petcock, the small shutoff valve used to control the flow of liquids (which features a threaded valve connected to a butterfly handle) and the stopcock (a small threaded valve intended to fully stop the flow of water or gas when shut off) are both common examples.
As unlikely as it may seem that the swinging mechanism in these valves owes its name to a weathervane, the even more unlikely appearance of the same phenomenon in other formerly Catholic countries is testament to the likelihood of the theory.
Hahn – male gallinaceous fowl (German)
Wetterhähne – weather vane (German)
Absperrhahn – stopcock (German)
Benzinhahn – petcock (German)
And then if you look at the Netherlands, you see a somewhat different picture. In the 1400s, the country was predominantly catholic. As you might predict, the country adopted the “windhaan” (weather rooster). But then something else happened. In the 1500s, the Reformation movements of Martin Luther and John Calvin swept the country – Lutherist churches replaced the cockerel on their churches with swans. The stopcock and petcock have different names.
Stopcock – Afsluitkraan
Petcock – Benzinekraan
And even French, which was predominantly Catholic until the Reformation movements of the mid-1500s also uses the term “Robinet” rather than “cock”. More importantly, the French had a different system with their weather vanes, which were a status symbol for the nobility and commoners were banned from having them. They never developed the colloquial term of “windcock” but rather became a “girouette”.
The firearm moved into popular culture during this same period. The matchlock was introduced in the 1400s, with arguments that the gun appeared in Germany in the 1470s. It’s rotating mechanism, now colloquially called a “trigger” or a “hammer” was referred to as a “cock”, where the shooter would rotate the hammer back away from a matchstick and then release the trigger to release the hammer.
Some arguments suggest that the reference is to the fact that a “cock” looks like a pecking chicken when released – but the argument for the colloquial reference of a turning mechanism as a cock is a strong one, and in no small part thanks to the French. Incidentally, this definition is also where the definition of “cocking” as “tilting” or “canting” comes into the language.
That “cock” was also a “hahn” in German. And, that was also true in Dutch, where the lontslot “matchlock” featured a “haan” (the cock). Fast forward to the early 16th century and the introduction of the flintlock, it was actually called a “snaphaan” (snap cock) in Dutch. And, in French, which didn’t have the windcock as reference, the term was “chien”, meaning “dog” or “hound”.
But if you were reading this blog in hopes that I’d start talking about penises, this might be the interesting bit. Otherwise, feel free to skip.
The usage of the word “cock” to refer to the penis not so coincidentally also appeared in the 14th century. The Kildare Poems were likely produced around 1330. The poems are historically important for valid reasons, for example, being the first and best-preserved record of the development of Irish English. But they’re also the first-known reference to the word “cock” as penis. In one of the 16 poems, Elde, a man is complaining of the problems of old age.
Al thus eld me for-dede.
Thus he toggith vte mi ted
And drawith ham on rewe.
Y ne mai no more of loue done,
Mi pilkoc pisseth on mi schone,
Vch schenlon me bi-schrew.
The actual meaning of the prefix is unknown, although it has several very likely sources:
- Old Germanic “pille” (Ball)
- Latin “pilum” (javelin)
- French “pile” (arrow)
- Latin “pilus” (hair)
And, you can still refer to a penis as a ” pillie” today in Irish English.
You can draw your own metaphors. Or, of course, do as Patrick Hanks, author of the Oxford Names Companion did when he conjectured that pilcock means “Darling”.
That’s also not quite as unlikely as you might think, considering pilcock was later used to refer affectionally to a young boy. And, there’s a long history of using the term penis to refer to someone with affection. For example, the modern Dutch language uses the term “pikkie” (little prick, or little penis) (coincidentally, the word pik, one of the many Dutch words for penis (English has even more somehow, no, really), comes from the same root as prick) as a term of endearment. And it wouldn’t be uncommon for a schoolboy to refer to his friend as a weenie when trying to dare them to take a risk, not in the sense of a small sausage or a tiny person, but in the slang sense of “penis”.
(This would be wrong, because the usage of pilcock to mean penis likely didn’t until occur until the 1300s, and this version of the name likely refers to either someone in the profession of fletcher, who’s job would be to attach feathers (typically from domestic fowl to arrows (piles). And even Mr. Toadbollock can be somewhat rescued, because bollock at the time meant “to swell”, e.g., the expansion of a toad’s chest before it makes a loud sound – draw your own conclusions)
A century later, we have the reference of “fidecok” to mean penis, which has a much clearer prefix. “Fid” “a peg” or “a plug”.
It wasn’t until a century after this that the word cock was used as a standalone to refer to the genitalia it does today.
So, did the word originate from:
- The fact that “cock” was used as a generic term for “male”, to the point where “cock” was used in the same sense as “bitch”?
- The fact that the penis may be said to resemble the shape of the poor-man’s weathercock?
(nothing phallic about that right)
- The fact that “cock” was used to mean “to tap” in the sense of cocking a gun?
- The fact that actually the handle on a hammer or a stopcock is quite a bit phallic?
- <insert some metaphor here about pointing to sexual attraction>
The truth is, we don’t actually know. We probably never will. But there’s more than enough information to conjecture, and, I guess, choose your favorite theory.