Cockcrows

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The cry of a rooster, typically signaling dawn or the start of a new day
2. the vocalization produced by a male chicken, often associated with morning rituals
3. a call signaling the arrival of daylight, marking a time for awakening or beginning daily activities

Etymology: "Cockcrows" is simply the plural of "cockcrow," the noun for the cry of a rooster at dawn, so its history is the history of that noun. "Cockcrow" is a compound of "cock," meaning rooster, and "crow," the rooster's call, joined in Middle English as "cok crowe." Its likely ancestor is the Old English "hancrǣd," literally "cock-crowing," built from "hana," the word for a rooster, and "crǣd," meaning crowing. The Old English form was probably the root of the later English compound, which kept the same sense of a bird's dawn call.

Synonyms: crows, calls, sings