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Cockle
Definitions
- 1 Any of various edible European bivalve mollusks, of the family Cardiidae, having heart-shaped shells.
"His wife, a small woman who walked always on high heels, borrowed Gerhardie's primus stove several times a day to cook her husband gargantuan meals of cockles, mussels, snails, and other such unpalatables."
- 2 Any of several field weeds, such as the common corncockle (Agrostemma githago) and darnel ryegrass (Lolium temulentum).
"But cockle, spurge, according to their law / Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, / You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove."
- 3 A £10 note; a tenner. Cockney, slang
- 4 common edible, burrowing European bivalve mollusk that has a strong, rounded shell with radiating ribs wordnet
- 5 The shell of such a mollusk.
Show 8 more definitions
- 6 common edible European bivalve wordnet
- 7 A wrinkle, pucker
- 8 A defect in sheepskin; firm dark nodules caused by the bites of keds on live sheep broadly
- 9 Chiefly in cockles of someone's heart: a person's innermost feelings. figuratively, in-plural
- 10 The dome of a heating furnace. UK
- 11 The fire chamber of a furnace. UK
- 12 A kiln for drying hops; an oast. UK
- 13 The mineral black tourmaline or schorl. Cornwall, UK
- 1 To cause to contract into wrinkles or ridges, as some kinds of cloth after a wetting; to pucker. transitive
- 2 To wobble, shake; to be unsteady. Midlands, Northern-England, Scotland
"Israel Wilde arrived last, his ankle swollen and already berry-blue after cockling at the top of Hatherself Scout."
- 3 to gather something into small wrinkles or folds wordnet
- 4 stir up (water) so as to form ripples wordnet
Etymology
From Middle English cokel, cokkel, kokkel, cocle, of uncertain origin. Perhaps a diminutive of Middle English cokke, cok (“cockle”), from Old English cocc (found in sǣcocc (“cockle”)) + -le; or perhaps from Old French coquille, from Vulgar Latin *cocchilia, from conchylia, from Ancient Greek κογχύλιον (konkhúlion), diminutive of κογχύλη (konkhúlē, “mussel”), of Pre-Greek substrate origin.
From Middle English cokel, cokkel, kokkel, cocle, of uncertain origin. Perhaps a diminutive of Middle English cokke, cok (“cockle”), from Old English cocc (found in sǣcocc (“cockle”)) + -le; or perhaps from Old French coquille, from Vulgar Latin *cocchilia, from conchylia, from Ancient Greek κογχύλιον (konkhúlion), diminutive of κογχύλη (konkhúlē, “mussel”), of Pre-Greek substrate origin.
From Middle English cockil, cokil, cokylle, from Old English coccel (“darnel”), of unknown origin, perhaps from a diminutive of Latin coccus (“berry”).
Origin uncertain.
Rhyming slang, from cock and hen for ten.
See also for "cockle"
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Unscramble this word: cockle