Obs. Also 5–6 -shote, -shott, -shoote. [f. COCK sb.1 9 c + SHOOT.] A broad way or glade in a wood, through which woodcocks, etc., might dart or ‘shoot,’ so as to be caught by nets stretched across the opening.
The statements that the net itself was the cockshoot, and that the proper spelling is cock-shut, appear to be dictionary blunders, founded on a misunderstanding of the word as something to ‘shut’ in or enclose the birds.
1530. Palsgr., 206/2. Cockesshote to take wodcockes with, uolee.
1601. No Whipping nor Tripping, etc. A silly honest creature may do well To watch a cocke-shoote, or a limed bush.
1651. Ogilby, Æsop, IV. 6.
| And when loud winds made Cock-shoots through the Wood, | |
| Rending down mighty Okes, I firm have stood. |
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 180. They are taken by nets, in Cock shoots.
1691. Blount, Law Dict., Gallivolatium, a Cockshoot or Cockglade.
b. Very common in topographical names in England as in Cockshott Wood, Farm, Close, etc.; retained even in cleared land where cockshoot woods have formerly been.
c. transf.
1587. Harrison, England, I. xviii. (1881), III. 133. They hang vp stones which naturallie haue holes in them … such a stone were an apt cockeshot for the diuell to run through.
d. Comb., as cockshoot-cord, -net.
1496. Bk. St. Albans, Fishing, H j. Take thenne and frette hym faste wyth a cockeshotecorde and bynde him to a fourme.
1566. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), 266. One cockshott net.
