Forms: 7 cacato, cockatoon, crockadore, 8 cokato, cocatore, cocatoo, 8– cockatoo. [ad. Malay kakatúa, app. immed. through Du. kaketoe; app. influenced in form by cock. Several authorities say the name represents the call of the bird: but see also quot. 1850.]
1. The name of numerous beautiful birds of the parrot kind, esp. the genus Cacatua, inhabiting Australia and the East Indian Islands, distinguished by a crest or tuft of feathers on the head, which can be raised or depressed at pleasure.
[1616. Beaum. & Fl., Little Fr. Lawyer, II. iii. My name is Cock-a-two, use me respectively, I will be cock-o’three else.]
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 212. Cacatoes (Birds like Parrats, fierce, and indomitable…).
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 281/2. Cockatoons … have generally long Tails.
1707. W. Funnell, Voy. Round World, ix. 265–6. The Crockadore is a Bird of various sizes…. When they fly wild up and down the Woods, they will call Crockadore, Crockadore; for which reason they go by that name.
a. 1732. Gay, Ep. Pulteney. They’re crown’d with feathers like the cockatoo.
1779. Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 295. At Sooloo, there are no Lories; but the Cocatores have yellow tufts.
1850. Jrnl. Indian Archipelago, IV. 183. Cockatoo, Malay Kakatuwah—a vice, a gripe, and also the name of the bird, no doubt referring to its powerful bill.
1854. Bushnan, in Circ. Sci. (1865), I. 294/1. The cockatoo shrieks its own name.
2. Australia. (colloq.) A small farmer. Also cockatoo farmer.
1864. H. Kingsley, Hillyars & Burtons, in Macm. Mag., Dec., 148. The small farmers, contemptuously called ‘cockatoos.’
1874. Lady Barker, N. Zealand, xv. 110. The small farmers are called Cockatoos in Australia by the squatters … who … say that, like a cockatoo, the small freeholder alights on good ground, extracts all he can from it, and then flies away.
1881. Chequered Career, 341. Most of the cockatoo farmers in South Australia are Germans.
