Cockfighting

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A competitive event in which specially bred birds engage in combat for the audience's enjoyment
2. A highly contentious practice where roosters are forced to fight one another, often leading to severe harm or fatalities
3. A form of entertainment where male chickens are pitted against each other in combat, typically resulting in bloodshed and injury

Etymology: Cockfighting is about as plain a compound as English offers: "cock," the male of the domestic fowl, joined to "fighting." The pairing is old. Its Middle English forms, "cokfytyng" and "kokkysfythynge," show the two halves being fused into one term while the spelling was still unsettled, and the idea of matching birds against each other for sport is far older than the English word for it. The "cock" in the name is the everyday word for the rooster, not a slang term, and the compound simply describes what the sport is: fowl set to fight. Nothing about the word has shifted from its literal sense, so the name still says exactly what happens in the pit.

Synonyms: fighting cocks