Also 5 cok, 5–6 cocke. [First known in 15th c. Agrees in form and sense with dial. Ger. kocke masc. heap of hay, also of dung; Norw. kok m. heap in general, esp. of dung, but also still more generally ‘lump’: cf. ON. kökkr lump (snæ-kökkr snow-ball), Sw. koka fem. clod, clot. It is uncertain whether the narrower or the wider sense is the primitive: see Grimm s.v. (Connection with the stem of Ger. kug-el, Du. kog-el ‘ball,’ has been suggested.)
In the Dictionnaire du Patois Normand, départem. de l’Eure (1879), it is said, haycocks are generally called villottes; but about Berville (a little south of Rouen) a villotte of the smallest size, in which the hay is put up the first day, is called une coque, from its resemblance to the rounded shape of an egg-shell (coque). This may be the same word: the derivation offered is, of course, questionable.]
A conical heap of produce or material.
a. of hay (rarely corn) in the field. Cf. HAY-COCK.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. lxxii. (1495), 646. Heye is … gadered and made of hepes in to cockes.
1470. Harding, Chron., clxxiii. ii. 6. [He] laye there with great power … among the hay cockes bushed.
1483. Cath. Angl., 71. A Cok of hay or of corne.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., I. (1586), 45 b. When it [grass] is dryed, we lay it in wind rowes and then make it up in Cockes, and after that in Moowes.
1679. Blount, Anc. Tenures, 131. To find one Man to make Cocks or Ricks of Hay.
1718. Gay, in Pope’s Lett., 9 Aug. A cock of barley in our next field has been consumed to ashes.
c. 1750. W. Ellis, in Old C. & Farm. Wds. (E. D. S.), s.v. Hay-making, The same day … it may be … put into grass-cocks. The second day we … put it into bastard-cocks, that are as big again as grass-cocks. The third day … we cock it up into heaps.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 220. Lying on the cocks of new-mown hay.
1882. F. P. Verney, in Contemp. Rev., XLII. 965. The corn was put up temporarily in little round cocks of about fifty sheaves.
b. of dung, wood, turf, etc.
1570. Levins, Manip., 158/10. A cocke of dung, collis.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., II. 167. Stacks or large Cocks of the mouldiest Dung, to raise Mushrooms on.
1743. Lond. & Country Brewer, III. (ed. 2), 175. Oak … they lay up in great Piles or Cocks to dry.
1881. Times, 14 Jan., 6/6. The burning of what was called in Ireland ‘a cock of turf.’
