[f. COCK v.1 + -ED1.] Set erect; having a pronounced upward turn.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, I. II. xxxviii. A Yongster gent With bever cock’t, and arm set on one side.
1691. The Weesils, ii. 7.
| His Wife too, in her Cock’d Comode well drest, | |
| And richest Silks, can rustle with the best. |
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4674/8. A brown bay Gelding … has … a large broom Tail cock’d, Trots all.
1826. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. II. (1863), 281. A wide mouth and a cocked-up nose.
Cocked hat. 1. A hat with the brim permanently turned up, esp. the three-cornered hat of this shape worn at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century; also various styles of hat formerly worn in the army and navy. Now, applied to the triangular hat (without cocks), pointed before and behind and rising to a point at the crown, worn as part of the full-dress uniform of staff-officers, surgeons, and others, and of some official court-dresses, etc.
1673. Wycherley, Gentl. Dancing-Master, Epil. Perriwigs, and broad cock’d Hats.
1756. Connoisseur, No. 75, ¶ 3. Knowledge is a greater ornament to the head, than a bag or a smart cocked hat.
1808. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XIII. 379. Among the heavy dragoons cocked hats are abolished, among the light they are just coming into vogue.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, ii. 11. Policemen with cocked hats like those of staff-officers.
1865. Etoniana, vi. 99. The masters at Eton, up to a comparatively recent date, wore cocked hats.
1887. T. A. Trollope, What I remember, I. xvi. 335. The emperor … suddenly and violently tossed his cocked hat into the corner of the room.
1890. Times, 22 Jan., 6/1. The coffin, covered with the Union Jack, and bearing the cocked-hat, and sword of the deceased [Lord Napier of Magdala].
2. Anat.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat., V. 187/2. The form of pelvis resulting from this bend … has received more particularly the name of the cocked hat.
3. A game similar to nine-pins, in which only three pins are set up, in triangular position. U.S.
4. Phr. To knock into a cocked hat.
1873. Slang Dict., 122. Anything which has been altered beyond recognition, or any man who has been put completely hors de combat, is said to have been knocked into a cocked-hat.
1888. Pall Mall Gaz., 26 Jan., 9/1. A frigate of the modern type would knock a fort armed with obsolete guns into a cocked hat.
5. Comb., as Cocked-hat-wise adv., after the manner of a cocked hat.
1860. All Y. Round, No. 48. 514. A table napkin folded cocked-hat-wise.
Hence Cocked-hatted a., wearing a cocked hat.
1835. Beckford, Recoll., 148. A most imposing cocked-hatted personage.
1862. T. Trollope, Marietta, II. iv. 71. Cocked-hatted officials.
