Forms: (1 coccul), 1–2 coccel, 3–7 cockel, 4– cockle. (Also 4 cokul, cockil, -el, cokel, 4–5 cokil, 4–7 cocle, 5 kokkel, cokkul, cockille, 5–6 cokyll(e, 6 coccle, cockyll, cockole, cokkell, 6–7 cockell(e.) [OE. coccul, coccel masc.; in no other Teutonic lang. (It looks like a L. *cocculus, dim. of coccus.)
Cotgr. has F. coquiol ‘a degenerate Barlie, or weed commonly growing among Barlie, and called haver-grasse,’ which M. Joret identifies with coquioule, ‘Festuca ovina.’
The Ir. and Gaelic cogal, used in the versions of Matt. xiii. for ‘cockle, tares,’ is merely the English word borrowed (prob. in the older form *cocal, though it is not known in O. or M.Irish).]
1. The name of a plant: now, and prob. from OE. times, applied to Lychnis (or Agrostemma) Githago, a caryophyllaceous plant, with handsome reddish-purple flowers succeeded by capsules of numerous black seeds, which grows in cornfields, especially among wheat. Also called Corn Cockle.
Known to early herbalists as Nigella or Nigellastrum, F. nielle. Nigella (dim. of L. nigra black, referring to the black seeds) was app. originally applied to a ranunculaceous plant, Nigella arvensis (or one of its congeners), a field-weed of southern regions; but in northern France and Britain, where this plant was unknown, the name was transferred to Gilhago, the black seeded corn-weed of these regions.
c. 1000. [see 2, the early quotations doubtless meaning this plant].
c. 1265. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 554/10. Zizania, neele, cockel.
a. 1387. Sinon. Barthol. (Anecd. Oxon.), 31. Nigella, i. zizannia, cocle.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 86. Cokylle, wede, nigella, lollium, zizannia [Pynson gitt].
c. 1450. Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.), Lollium, zizannia, nigella idem. gall. nele, ae. kokkel, nascitur intra triticum.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 20. Cockole hath … floures of purple colour, as brode as a grote, and the sede is rounde and blacke.
1538. Turner, Libellus, Githago siue Nigellastrum … vulgus appellat Coccle aut pople.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, II. xi. 160. Cockle or fielde Nigelweede.
1678. Phillips, Cockle, a Weed call’d Corn-rose, Darnel, or field-Nigella.
1721–42. Bailey, Cockle, a Weed, otherwise called Corn-rose [1753–90 otherwise called Corn-Campion].
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xix. 275.
1866. Treas. Bot., 31. The weed Corn Cockle, with large, entire, purple petals.
b. The seed of this plant.
1713. E. Tenison, in Phil. Trans., XXVIII. 92. A Wire Sieve (such as is used to separate Cockle from Corn).
1743. Lond. & Country Brewer, IV. (ed. 2), 288. A little black Seed, that contains a very white Flour, which we call Cockle.
2. Applied from OE. times to render or represent the zizania of the Vulgate in Matt. xiii., or the lolium with which Latin writers identified this.
Recent investigation has apparently settled that the ζιζάνιον, pl. -ια, of the N.T., zizania and lolium of Latin writers, was the grass Lolium temulentum or Darnel, a prevalent weed in Mediterranean and Levantine regions (cf. Stanley, Sinai & Palestine, 426, Tristram, Nat. Hist. Bible, 487), which is very prone to be affected with Ergot, and in the ergotized condition is deleterious. The translation of these words by coccel, cockle, in English was (like the later erroneous rendering tares) due in the first instance to ignorance as to the plant meant by zizania or lolium; but it led to the further error of some scientific writers who, knowing lolium to be darnel, still called it ‘cockle.’
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Matt. xiii. 25. Þa com his feonda sum & ofer-seow hit mid coccele.
c. 1050. Byrhtferth’s Handboc, in Anglia, VIII. 300. Þe æʓðer sæwð ʓelomlice ʓe lasor ʓe coccul on manna æceron.
c. 1340. Cursor M., 1138 (Trin.). For þi muchel felonye Þis whete shal wexe cokul [C. zizanny, F. darnel] hye.
1382. Wyclif, Matt. xiii. 25. His enmye came, and sew aboue dernel, or cokil [1388 taris] in the midil of whete.
a. 1387. Sinon. Barthol. (Anecd. Oxon.), 44. Zizannia, lollium idem, cokel.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. lxv. (Tollem. MS.). Amonge þe beste whete sumtyme groweþ euel wedes, and venimouse, as cocle and ray [ut lolium, lappatium]. Ibid., XVII. cxciv. (1495), 731. Poetes calle the herbe ray: Infelix lollium, vngracyous Cokyll.
1555. in Bonner, Homilies, 10. Of such earth as can bryng furth but weedes, nettels, brambles, bryers, cocle and darnell.
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Dec., 124. Which … Cockel for corne, and chaffe for barley bare.
1582. N. T. (Rhem.), Matt. xiii. 25. Vvhen men vvere a sleepe, his enemy came and ouersovved cockle among the vvheate [all other 16th c. & later vv. have tares].
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., IV. iii. 383. Alone, alone sowed Cockell, reap’d no Corne.
1611. Bible, Job xxxi. 40. Let thistles grow in stead of wheat, and cockle [marg. Or, noysome weedes; Vulg. spina, LXX βάτος, Wyclif a thorne, Coverd. thornes] in stead of barley.
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb., I. (1668), Table Hard Wds., Lollium, is that weed which we call Cockel, and groweth amongst the corn in every field.
1685. Dryden, Thren. August., xii. 18.
| With rank Geneva Weeds run o’re, | |
| And Cockle, at the best, amidst the Corn it bore. |
b. fig.
1429. Pol. Poems (1859), II. 143. Thy fader … Voided al cokil farre out of Syon.
1548. Cranmer, Catech., 174. To sowe the cockell of heresye and erroneous opinions.
1607. Shaks., Cor., III. i. 70. The Cockle of Rebellion, Insolence, Sedition.
1730. Young, Epist. Pope, i. Weed the cockle from the generous corn!
3. Sometimes applied to other corn-weeds. a. ? The corn poppy. b. The bur-dock.
1579. Langham, Gard. Health (1633), 433. Wilde cockle that groweth in corne … may be pressed forth as opium.
1863. Barnes, Dorset Dial. (Philol. Soc.), Cockle, or Cuckle, the burr of the burdock (arctium). [Cf. 1398 in 2.]
4. Comb. Cockle-bur = CLOTE-BUR: in U.S., Xanthium Strumarium; also = AGRIMONY; cockle-machine, -separator, a machine for separating the seeds of cockle from wheat (U.S.).
1866. Treas. Bot., 305.
1880. [Mary Allan-Olney], New Virginians, I. 133. Daturas … cockle-burrs, Spanish needles.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., Cockle-bur, or Clot-bur, Agrimonia Eupatoria and the genus Xanthium.
1887. American Miller, XV. 211 (Advt.). Kurth’s Cockle separator. Ibid., 301. Two double-cylinder cockle-machines, French system.
