Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. one who hides from the bailiff.

1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c 354: I try’d several Stratagems to knap him, yet he was such a cursed shy Cock, that I could not surprize him.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1797		‘T.B. Junr.’ Pettyfogger Dramatized II iii: Little or nothing; or may I never have a shy cock.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1825		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 215: The Sunday men [...] are not now so numerous as formerly: the facility of a trip across the Channel enables many a shy cock to evade the scrutinizing eye [...] of the law.
1835		Salisbury & Winchester Jrnl 15 June 2/5: This here defendant is vat va calls in our perfession ‘a shy cock,’ cause you sees as how he vorks on the ‘cross’ .
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 131/2: Shy cock, a person afraid.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 73: Shycock, one who fears arrest.

2. a coward.

1771		Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 78: The doctor being a shy cock, would not be caught with chaff, and flatly rejected the proposal.
1796		F. Reynolds Fortune’s Fool V i: I demur’d—then the members rose, lock’d the door, and call’d me a shycock!
1803		J. Kenney Raising the Wind I iii: A shy cock, I see.
1804		Morn. Post (London) 28 June 3/4: The libel was contained in a letter signed An Old Sailior, in which the Admiral is represented as a ‘shy cock’ [...] ‘He who fights and runs away, May live to fight another day’.
1810		Morn. Post (London) 31 July 3/3: When Bill Soames heard that Sir Francis Slygo sneaked off from the Tower in a swimmer, he observed he was a shycock and that all his pals ought to turn him up.
1812		Mr. Lawson ‘Chaunt’ in Egan Boxiana I 478: But yet, when all the truth is told / Some rank him with the shy cocks.
c.1825		T. Jones ‘The True Bottom’d Boxer’ in Egan Bk of Sports (1832) 74/1: Your shy cocks, he shows ’em no favor, ’od rot ’em all.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 24 Mar. 3/2: A little bantam, by no means a shy cock, one Master Cavenagh, aged ten years, gave her a clue to the mystery.

3. a second-rate or fraudulent tradesman .

1835

Hants. Advertiser 13 June 2/4: This here defendant is vot ve calls in our perfession [i.e. link-men] a ‘shy cock’ cause you see as how he vorks on the ‘cross.’ He ain’t never been brought up to our art.