Also 7–8 cocon, 9 coccoon. [a. F. cocon, in 16th c. coucon, app. derivative of coque shell (of mollusk, egg, nut, etc.).]
1. The envelope or case of silky threads, spun by the larvæ of many insects as a covering to enclose them in the chrysalis state; originally that of the silkworm; extended by Kirby and Spence to the analogous structures formed by any insects, as also to the silken case spun by spiders for the reception of their eggs.
1699. W. Aglionby, in Phil. Trans., XXI. iv. 183. About Midsummer … they begin [in Piedmont] to draw the Silk from its Cocon. Ibid. (1759), LI. 55. I boiled a part of the cocoon in water.
1766. Smollett, Trav., I. 346. The cocon or pod of silk, about the size of a pigeon’s egg.
1816. Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1818), I. 69. To the artificial coverings…, whether of silk, wood, or earth, &c. … which have been called by different writers pods, cods, husks, and beans, I shall continue the more definite French term cocon, anglicized into cocoon.
1842. Tennyson, Two Voices, lxi. For every worm beneath the moon … Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.
1874. Lubbock, Orig. & Met. Ins., i. 12. The oval bodies which are so numerous in ants’ nests … are really not eggs but cocoons.
b. Transferred to similar structures made by other animals, as the cells of the mud-fish.
1883. J. G. Wood, in Sunday Mag., Nov., 675/2. These cells [of the Mudfish] are technically called ‘cocoons.’ Ibid., 676/1. The mud of which the cocoon is made is the same as that which the Israelites, while in captivity, were forced to make into bricks.
c. fig.
1865. Masson, Rec. Brit. Philos., ii. 83. That power of thinking which has involved itself in such a vast cocoon of wonders.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 56. The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts.
2. attrib.
1835. Ure, Philos. Manuf., 94. The cocoon-silk threads are twin tubes laid parallel.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., iv. (1878), 67. In the caterpillar and cocoon stages.
1870. R. Ferguson, Electr., 45. On the hook … a cocoon thread is hung.
