Heading
crest of the highest. Cock-a-hoop is plainly the original expression, and cock-on-the-hoop a later form adopted when the original meaning had vanished.] English equivalents are 'in full feather, and 'a-cock-horse' (q.v.), while colloquial French has s'en pourlécher la face and s'émérillonner (to become cheerful through repeated potations).
1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act i., Sc. 5. Am I the master here or you? Go to. . . . You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man.
1633. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, V., ii. John Clay agen! nay then—set cock-a-hoop: I have lost no daughter, nor no money, justice.
1707. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, ol. II., pt. XII., p. 20. Those cruel, sanctify'd Pretenders, Now rais'd by Fortune, cock-a-hoop.
1853. Diogenes, II., 195. 'Our Foreign News Summary.' All the cock-a-hoop Beys in the Sultan's dominions Have taken to expressing their individual opinions.
1885. D. C. Murray, Rainbow Gold, bk. IV., ch. vi. He's a fine lad, a fine lad, but cock-a-whoop, and over certain for his years
Cock-Ale, subs. (old).—A homely
aphrodisiac.—[Grose, 1785.]
[An allusion to the penis and the
stirring tendency of strong beer.]
Nares says it was 'a sort of ale
which was very celebrated in the
seventeenth century for its superior
quality.'
1675. Woman Turn'd Bully [quoted in Nares]. Spr. How, Mr. Trupenny, not a drop worth drinking? Did you ever taste our cock-ale?
1698. Ward, London Spy. My friend by this time (knowing the entertainment of the house) had called for a bottle of cock-ale, of which I tasted a glass, but could not conceive it to be anything but a mixture of small beer and treacle. If this be cock-ale, said I, e'en let cocks-*combs drink it. [n.]
1738. Poor Robin. Notwithstanding the large commendations you give the juice of barley, yet if compar'd with canary, it's no more than a mole-hill to a mountain; whether it be cock-ale, China ale, etc. [n.]
Also cock-broth, etc.
Cock Alley, subs. (old).—The
female pudendum. Other derivations
of the same make are
Cock-chafer, Cock Hall,
Cock Inn, Cock Lane, Cock-Loft,
Cock-Pit, Cockshire,
and Cock-shy. For synonyms,
see Monosyllable.
Cockalorum or Cockylorum,
subs. (common).—1. A half contemptuous
address.—See quot.
1815-23. T. C. Carter, in Daily News, 7 Dec., 1889, p. 3, col. 5. In 1823 was displayed in a shop window in Pilgrim Street, Ludgate Hill, a picture entitled 'Seizure for Rent.' It represented the interior of a room; the only article of furniture a bottomless chair, on the edge of which was seated a half-clad man smoking a pipe. The doorway was filled up by a very fat beadle in full uniform; behind him in the shade could be seen two men, each with a porter's knot. To the beadle the tenant was saying: 'Now then, old cockalorum jig, seize away.' In my school days, from 1815 to 1820, we often heard in the playground: 'Now little cockalorum, out of that.'
2. (schoolboys').—A rough and tumble game described as follows by a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette (1890, Jan. 4, p. 2, col. 1):—
When I went to Harrow, thirty years ago, I found a winter evening game in force there, called 'high cockalorum,' of which I send you a sketch. The players used to divide into two opposing bands of from twelve to fourteen each—in fact, the more the merrier. One side 'went down,' so as to constitute a long 'hogsback'—the last boy having a couple of pillows between himself and the wall, and each boy clasping his front rank man, and carefully tucking his own 'cocoa-nut' under his right arm, so as to prevent fracture of the vertebræ. When the hogsback was thus formed, the other side came on, leap-frogging on to
