or acock, adv. (colloquial).—1. See quot. 1847; also (2) defiantly.
1611. COTGRAVE, Dictionarie, s.v. Il est à Cheval, hee is set ON COCK-HORSE; hee is all a hoight, hee now begins to flaunt it.
1658. T. WALL, God’s Rev. Enem. Ch., 41. There is no tyrannie like to that of a slave, whom vilany hath set a COCK-HORSE.
1683. E. HOOKER [PORDAGE, Mystic Divinitie, 22, Pref.]. Welth that rideth up A-COCK-HORS (pass by the term) while Worth holdeth but the stirrup.
1829. T. P. THOMPSON, Exercises, Political and Others (1842), I. 10. The Revolution of 1688, was the outbreak of an oppressed party, and setting it A-COCK-HORSE on the oppressing one.
1846. JERROLD, The Chronicles of Clovernook [Works (1864), IV. 379]. A man, who, on his outstart in life, sets his hat ACOCK—a man who defies Hymen and all his wicked wiles.
1847. HALLIWELL, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, etc., s.v. A-COCK-HORSE. Triumphant … A somewhat slang expression, not quite obsolete.
