Cockcrow

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The time of day at which the first crow of a cockerel is heard; dawn or daybreak; first light countable, uncountable

    "I put the chief of police behind the bar, instructed him in his duties, and we four convivial spirits sprawled along the counter drinking ale and telling yarns till cockcrow."

  2. 2
    the first light of day wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
break of daydawnsunupaurorabreakbreak of the day

Example

More examples

"I put the chief of police behind the bar, instructed him in his duties, and we four convivial spirits sprawled along the counter drinking ale and telling yarns till cockcrow."

Etymology

From Middle English cok crowe (also as cokkes crowe), equivalent to cock + crow. Likely a suppletive variation of Old English hancrǣd (“cockcrow, dawn”, literally “cock-crowing”), from hana (“cock, rooster”) + crǣd (“crowing”).

Related phrases

first light

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.