Also cock’s-spur.
1. The spur of a cock.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Espolon, a cocks spur.
1700. J. Brome, Trav. Eng. (1707), 297. Some [stones] we discovered … which resemble Cock-spurs.
2. Angling. A kind of Caddis-worm.
1653. Walton, Angler, 231. There is also a lesser Cadis-worm, called a Cock-spur, being in fashion like the spur of a Cock, sharp at one end.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 183. Other water Flys there are that come of such worms, called Cock-spurs, Rough-coats, Pipers.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, i. (1880), 20. A small fragment of red worm, or as it is called on the Trent, the cockspur.
3. A shrub with reclining thorny branches, Pisonia aculeata, found in the West Indies.
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica, 358. The Cock’s-spur, or Fingrigo … is frequent in all the sugar-islands.
4. (See quot.)
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Cockspurs, small clay wedges used in the potteries to separate articles of pottery ware, after the process of glazing, and to prevent them adhering.
5. A kind of casement latch hung by a pin.
1703. T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 100. Smiths in London ask’d me 6d. per Pound for Casements … if they made them with Turn-bouts (or Turn-buckles …) or Cock-spurs, and Pull-backs at the Hind-side to pull them to with.
6. See quot. = Fr. ergot.
1710. London & Wise, Compl. Gard. (1719), 136. The Cock spur, or dry dead parts of Branches that remain where a Branch was shorten’d above the next Eye or Shoot.
1799. G. Smith, Laborat., II. 131. The dead wood, called cock-spur, is to be cut clean off in the following year in March.
7. ERGOT of rye. Also attrib.
1813. J. Thomson, Lect. Inflam., 541. Rainy and moist seasons in which the rye contained a large proportion of the cockspur. Ibid., 545. To collect a sufficient quantity of the cockspur rye.
8. Short for cockspur burner, thorn.
1808. Catal. Plants Bot. Garden Liverpool, 21. Crus Galli, Cockspur.
9. Comb. cockspur-burner, a gas-burner with three holes; cockspur-grass, Panicum Crus-galli, an annual grass occasional in Britain; cockspur hawthorn, c. thorn, Cratægus Crus-galli, a native of North America, cultivated as an ornamental shrub in Europe.
1737. Compl. Fam.-Piece, II. iii. 367. There are likewise many Trees and Shrubs now in Bloom, as the … Cockspur Hawthorn, [etc.].
1810. Ann. Reg., 1808, Charact., etc. 133. The shape and general appearance of this tube, has procured it among the workmen, the name of the cockspur burner. Ibid. The number of burners … amounts to 271 Argands, and 633 cockspurs.
1819. Accum, Coal Gas, 255. A swing bracket, furnished with a cockspur burner. The burner consists of a hollow flattened globe … pierced laterally with three or more holes.
1825. P. W. Watson, Dendrol. Brit., 56. Mespilus Crus Galli, W. Cockspur Thorn.
1846. G. B. Emerson, Trees & Shrubs, 433. Cockspur Thorn … a singularly neat shrub, often forming a beautiful, round-headed, small tree.
