See COCKLE sb.2
1. The shell of the cockle; usually, a single valve of the shell. Formerly applied much more generally, including e.g., the scallop-shell worn by pilgrims to St. James of Compostella.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 904. With cokille shelles brente.
1530. Palsgr., 206/2. Cokell shell, coquille.
1630. Drayton, Noah’s Flood, Wks. 1539 (R.). The ark … doth so excel That ship, as that ship doth a cockle shell.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnar., Poet. Wks. 1721, II. 71. They might more easily contain In Cockle-shell the whole Atlantick Main.
1747. Wesley, Prim. Physick (1762), 104. A Pound of fresh calcined Oyster-shells and Cockle-shells.
1758. R. Brookes, Gen. Pract. Physic (ed. 3), II. 8. Let the patient … drink … Oister or Cockle-shell Lime-Water.
1877. W. Blades, Pref. to Caxton’s Dict., ix. Wearers of the Cockle-shell, the emblems of a pilgrimage to Compostella.
1884. M. S. Lovell, Edible Mollusca, 44. Cockle-shells are used as cultch for the oyster spat to adhere to…. Frank Buckland … adds … ‘the great advantage of cockle-shells cultch is, [etc.].’
† b. A spiral gastropod shell. [F. coquille.]
1538. Leland, Itin., I. 55. Writhen about with Degrees like Turninges of Cokilshilles, to cum to the Top.
2. An imitation of a cockle or scallop-shell, e.g., in the collar of the order of St. Michael.
1488. in Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), II. 393/1. A collar of cokkilschellis contenand xxiiii schellis of gold.
3. A small frail boat or vessel. Also attrib.
[Cf. 1631 in 1.]
1829. J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXVI. Dec., 846. In a bit cockle-shell o’ an open boat.
1836. W. Irving, Astoria, I. 182. Floating for thousands of miles in a cockle shell, down a turbulent stream.
1876. Miss Braddon, J. Haggard’s Dau., I. 15. None but a madman would sail in yon cockleshell with a gale coming.
† 4. nonce-wd. Shallowness, unsteadiness. Obs.
1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), III. 160. We shall find The Ridicule rising full as strongly against the Professors of the higher as the lower kind. Cockleshell abounds with each.
Hence Cockle-shelled a., adorned with a cockle-shell; having a cockle-shell as a badge.
1635. R. N., Camden’s Hist. Eliz., I. 66. The Ensignes of the Cockle-shelled Order of Saint Michael.
