Forms: 3 cukeweld, 4–5 coke-, 4 koke-, cocke-, couke-, kukwold(e, 5 cok-, cukewalde, 5–6 cok-, cocold(e, 6 cock-, coke-, cowck-, cuckold(e, cucquold, cuckould, (cockhole, cookcold), 6–7 cuckhold, (7 coockould, cucculd, cuckhole, cuckot), 6– cuckold. [ME. cukeweld, cokewold (3 syllables), adaptation of an OF. word which appears in 1463 as cucuault, pointing to an earlier *cucuald, f. OF. cucu cuckoo (in 15–17 c. cocu, 16–17th c. coucou, cuckoo and cuckold; mod.F. coucou cuckoo, cocu cuckold, also, dialectally, cuckoo), with the appellative and pejorative suffix -ald, -auld, -ault, -aud = It. -aldo, f. Ger. -wald: see Diez, Gramm. Lang. Rom. (1874), II. 346. (The Sw. dial. kukkuvall is from F.; mod. Icel. kokkáll from English.)
Another OF. synonym was coucuol, couquiol, with dimin. ending, app. from Prov.: cf. OPr. coguiol, mod. Pr. couguieu, couquieu, couguou, cuckoo and cuckold. The current F. equivalent is the simple form cocu. The origin of the sense is supposed to be found in the cuckoo’s habit of laying its egg in another bird’s nest; in Ger., gauch and kuckuk, and in Pr., cogotz, were applied to the adulterer as well as the husband of the adulteress, and Littré cites an assertion of the same double use in French; in English, where cuckold has never been the name of the bird, we do not find it applied to the adulterer.]
1. A derisive name for the husband of an unfaithful wife.
a. 1250. Owl & Night., 1544. Heo nah iweld, Þa heo hine makie cukeweld.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. IV. 140. Hose wilneþ hire to wyue … Bote he beo A Cokewold I-kore, cut of boþe myn Eres.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Miller’s Prol., 44. Leue brother Osewold, Who hath no wyf, he is no Cokewold [v.r. coukekukwold].
c. 1425. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 651/29. Hic ninarius, cokwalde.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., xcii. 421 (Add. MS.). Thy false monke hathe a-way my wife, and made me a Cokewolde.
1483. Cath. Angl., 85. To make Cukewalde [A. Cwkwalde], curucare.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 105. Is thy husband (quoth he) a cockold Iane?
1590. Spenser, F. Q., III. x. 11. Without regard … of husband old, Whom she hath vow’d to dub a fayre cucquold.
1650. Weldon, Crt. Jas. I., 111. Hee was … a Cuckold, having a very pretty wench to his Wife.
1728. Young, Love Fame, i. Wks. (1757), 81. And the brib’d cuckold … glories in his gilded horn.
1845. Ford, Handbk. Spain, I. 46. The Spaniards, in the sixteenth century, mounted unrepining cuckolds … on asses.
b. attrib.
1718. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., lviii. II. 93. A beaten wife and cuckold swain Had jointly cursed the marriage chain.
1789. Burns, ‘Oh, Willie brewed.’ Who first shall rise to gang awa A cuckold coward loon is he.
2. A book-name of the American cow-bird, Molothrus ater, a member of a genus of birds which, like the cuckoo, lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. (Century Dict.)
3. Short for Cuckold-fish: see 4.
4. Comb. † Cuckold-fish, a fish with horn-like projections, prob. the cow-fish (Ostracion quadricorne); † cuckold-fly (see quot.); cuckold-maker, ‘one that makes a practice of corrupting wives’ (J.); so cuckold-making; † cuckold’s chorister, the cuckoo; † Cuckold’s haven, point, a point on the Thames, below Greenwich; formerly used allusively; † cuckoldshire (humorous) cuckoldom; † cuckold’s-increase, a West Indian leguminous plant, Vigna unguiculata; cuckold’s-knot, neck, a knot or loop made in a rope by crossing it over itself and seizing or binding it together with a cord at the point of crossing; † cuckold’s-row (humorous), cuckoldom; cuckold-tree, an American Acacia, A. cornigera.
1757. B. Martin, Misc. Corr., II. 544. The Piscis Bicornis, vulgarly called the *Cuckold-Fish.
1750. G. Hughes, Barbadoes, 83. *Cuckold Fly … is of the Beetle kind, of about half an inch long, and of a dark-red colour.
1580. Baret, Alv., C 1726. A *cuckould maker, mœchus.
1682. Southerne, Loyal Brother, II. i. 16. 1 Sold. And I am a Cuckold-maker.
1681. Otway, Soldier’s Fort., III. i. A bloody *Cuckold-making Scoundrel.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, XI. x. Young gentlemen who profess the art of Cuckold-making.
1592. Greene, Upst. Courtier (1871), 6. When the *Cuckold’s chorister began to bewray April-Gentlemen with his never changed notes.
1606. Day, Ile of Guls (N.). A young girle, married to an old man, doth [long] to run her husband ashore at *Cuckolds haven.
c. 1537. Thersites, in Hazl., Dodsley, I. 424. All the court of conscience in *Cuckoldshire.
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica, 292. *Cuckold’s-Increase. This plant is cultivated in all parts of Jamaica, and the pulse generally made use of at every gentleman’s table.
1847–78. Halliwell, *Cuckold’s-knot, a noose tied so that the ends point lengthways.
1846. Young, Naut. Dict., *Cuckold’s neck, a knot by which a rope is secured to a spar, the two parts of the rope crossing each other and being seized together.
1757. Poor Robin (N.). If you are minded for to wed … Let her be … chaste … Lest if at *Cuckolds point you land [etc.].
a. 1500. Cokwolds Daunce, 197, in Hazl., E. P. Poetry, I. 46. I may dance in the *cokwold row.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev., ii. 52. Many a brave Fellow lives in Cuckolds-Row.
1815. J. Donn, Hortus Cantab., 327. Mimosa cornigera, *Cuckold-tree. S. America.
