cock n.5
1. a broadsheet or pamphlet, sold in the streets and relating some form of lurid and sensational incident, typically a fire, a murder or an accident.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 22: Cocks fictitious narratives, in verse or prose, of murders, fires, and terrible accidents, sold in the streets as true accounts. The man who hawks them, a patterer, often changes the scene of the awful event to suit the taste of the neighbourhood he is trying to delude. Possibly a corruption of cook, a cooked statement. | |
| (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor I 214/2: ‘Cocks;’ which, in polite language, means accounts of fabulous duels between ladies of fashion – of apochryphal elopements, or fictious love-letters of sporting noblemen [...] or awful tragedies, including mendacious murders, impossible robberies, and delusive suicides. | |
| Curiosities of Street Lit. n.p.: With these remarks we now introduce our readers to a genuine Catnachian ‘Cock’ [...] entitled ‘Horrid Murder Committed by a Young Man on a Young Woman’. | |
| in Sl. Dict. 121: A ‘cock’ is an apocryphal story, generally, of a murder or elopement bawled about the streets by the Seven Dials’ ‘patterers’. |
2. nonsense, rubbish; also in phr. (load of) old cock.
 | implied in talk cock | |
| ‘Phantom of the Cookhouse’ in Bitten by the Tarantula (2005) 173: Well, if you arst me, sir, it’s a lot of cock. | |
| Absolute Beginners 39: If they think that all cat’s c—k, well, let them think it and good luck! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Pairs and Loners 164: Ah, cut out the cock and hand it over. | |
| Glass Canoe (1982) 199: I never fell for that sort of cock when I was a kid. | |
| (con. 1940s) Danger Tree 131: To say that Hitler can’t be beat / Is just a lot of cock. | |
| Lingo 66: Other well-used World War II complaints still in wide use today included [...] to be jack of something, possibly everything, and a lot of (hot) cock used to describe anything felt to be nonsense. |
In compounds
to obtain money on false pretences.
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 67/1: Catch Cocks, To (Low Military). To obtain money by false pretences. Catch-cocks are contrived by characterless soldiers who address gentlemen, invent tales of distress, and often thereby obtain money. ‘Joe, let’s go cock-catching.’. |
In phrases
unsatisfactory, mixed up, useless.
| letter 2 Dec. in Leader (2000) 102: I am not printing these words because the ribbon on my printer is all 2 cock and shagged 8. | |
| letter 7 May in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 274: The rhyme’s all to cock otherwise. I’m sure it’s far too late to do anything about it now. | |
| Ten Times Table I iii: The kennels are all to cock. | |
| House of Doors 21: My system’s all to cock. | |
| Bootleg 241: The volume level is all to cock. |
(Aus./US) nonsense, rubbish.
| Behind Bamboo 396/2: Hot cock, nonsense, boasting, vain talk. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘USMC Sl.’ AS XXXI:3 193: hot cock, n. News. | |
| Lingo 66: Other well-used World War II complaints still in wide use today included [...] to be jack of something, possibly everything, and a lot of (hot) cock used to describe anything felt to be nonsense. |
to talk nonsense.
| Starting Point iii 52: ‘If I hadn’t let Mackenzie through that time, we’d have won.’ ‘Don’t talk cock. You played a damned good game.’ . | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 232: [...] since ca. 1938. |