Word.ws English Dictionary

chanticleer

Syllables: chan·ti·cleerUK/ˈtʃɑːntɪˌklɪə/US/t͡ʃæntəˌklɪɹ/

chanticleer noun: a domestic rooster or cock, especially in fables and fairy tales.

chanticleer: a domestic rooster or cock, especially in fables and fairy tales
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

chanticleer (plural chanticleers)

  1. (archaic, literary) A domestic rooster or cock, especially in fables and fairy tales.
    • When I did hear / The motley fool, thus moral on the time, / My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, / That fools should be so deep-contemplative[…].c. 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 2, scene 7
    • It is happily some particular sense that unto cockes or chanticleares discovereth the morning and midnight houre, and moveth them to crow[…].1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

Verb

chanticleer (third-person singular simple present chanticleers, present participle chanticleering, simple past and past participle chanticleered)

  1. To make the crowing sound of a cock.
  2. To crow in exultation.

Forms of chanticleer

Noun
pluralchanticleers
Verb
third-person singular presentchanticleers
present participlechanticleering
past participlechanticleered
pastchanticleered

Origin of chanticleer

] From Middle English Chauntecleer, from Old French Chantecler (modern French Chanteclair), the proper name of the cock in the literary cycle of Reynard the Fox, that also gave origin to chantecler, the name of a chicken breed; from chanter (“to sing, to crow”) + cler (“clear, clearly”). Attested in English since 1250–1300.

Questions about chanticleer

What does chanticleer mean?
Chanticleer means a domestic rooster or cock, especially in fables and fairy tales.
What part of speech is chanticleer?
Chanticleer can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce chanticleer?
Chanticleer is pronounced /ˈtʃɑːntɪˌklɪə/ (UK).
What is the plural of chanticleer?
The plural of chanticleer is chanticleers.

Words near chanticleer in the dictionary

  1. Chanthaburi
  2. Chanthaburi Khmer
  3. Chanthavong
  4. Chanthavongs
  5. Chanti
  6. chanticleer
  7. chanticleered
  8. chanticleering
  9. chanticleers
  10. chantie
  11. chanties

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chanticleer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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