Word.ws English Dictionary

cockle

Syllables: cock·le/ˈkɒkl̩/US/ˈkɑk(ə)l/

cockle noun: any of various edible European bivalve mollusks, of the family Cardiidae, having heart-shaped shells.

cockle: any of various edible European bivalve mollusks, of the family Cardiidae, having heart-shaped shells
Image: Mário NET, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

cockle (plural cockles)

  1. Any of various edible European bivalve mollusks, of the family Cardiidae, having heart-shaped shells.
    • His wife, a small woman who walked always on high heels, borrowed Gerhardie's primus stove several times a day to cook her husband gargantuan meals of cockles, mussels, snails, and other such unpalatables.1990, Dido Davies, Andrew Davies, William Gerhardie: A Biography, page 164
  2. The shell of such a mollusk.
  3. (directly from French coquille) A wrinkle, pucker
  4. (broadly) A defect in sheepskin; firm dark nodules caused by the bites of keds on live sheep
  5. (figuratively, in plural) Chiefly in cockles of someone's heart: a person's innermost feelings.
  6. (UK) The dome of a heating furnace.
  7. (UK) The fire chamber of a furnace.
  8. (UK) A kiln for drying hops; an oast.
  9. (Cornwall, UK) The mineral black tourmaline or schorl.

Verb (1)

cockle (third-person singular simple present cockles, present participle cockling, simple past and past participle cockled)

  1. (transitive) To cause to contract into wrinkles or ridges, as some kinds of cloth after a wetting; to pucker.

Noun (2)

cockle (plural cockles)

  1. Any of several field weeds, such as the common corncockle (Agrostemma githago) and darnel ryegrass (Lolium temulentum).
    • But cockle, spurge, according to their law / Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, / You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section X
    Synonyms:
    darnel, false wheat

Verb (2)

cockle (third-person singular simple present cockles, present participle cockling, simple past and past participle cockled)

  1. (Midlands, Northern England, Scotland) To wobble, shake; to be unsteady.
    • Israel Wilde arrived last, his ankle swollen and already berry-blue after cockling at the top of Hatherself Scout.2017, Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury, published 2019, page 32

Noun (3)

cockle (plural cockles)

  1. (Cockney, slang) A £10 note; a tenner.

cockle meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

cockle in Tamil

கிளிஞ்சல், இப்பி, சிப்பி, சிற்றலைகள், சிற்றலைகள் தூண்டல், ஊமைச்சி

cockle in Urdu

سلوٹ ڈالنا

cockle in Malayalam

cockle, mother of pearl
ഞമണിക്ക ñamaṇikka

cockle in Kannada

ಸುಕ್ಕು, ಸಣ್ಣ ಚಿಪ್ಪು ಮೀನು, ಚಿಪ್ಪುಳ್ಳ ಸಮುದ್ರದ ಒಂದು ಪ್ರಾಣಿ
More languagesFewer languages
cockle in Malay
kerang

Synonyms of cockle

Forms of cockle

Noun
pluralcockles
Verb
third-person singular presentcockles
present participlecockling
past participlecockled
pastcockled

Origin of cockle

From Middle English cokel, cokkel, kokkel, cocle, of uncertain origin. Perhaps a diminutive of Middle English cokke, cok (“cockle”), from Old English cocc (found in sǣcocc (“cockle”)) + -le; or perhaps from Old French coquille, from Vulgar Latin *cocchilia, from conchylia, from Ancient Greek κογχύλιον (konkhúlion), diminutive of κογχύλη (konkhúlē, “mussel”), of Pre-Greek substrate origin.

From Middle English cockil, cokil, cokylle, from Old English coccel (“darnel”), of unknown origin, perhaps from a diminutive of Latin coccus (“berry”).

Origin uncertain.

Words formed from cockle

Phrases with cockle

Questions about cockle

What does cockle mean?
Cockle means any of various edible European bivalve mollusks, of the family Cardiidae, having heart-shaped shells.
What is cockle in Tamil?
Cockle in Tamil is கிளிஞ்சல், இப்பி, சிப்பி. See Cockle meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is cockle?
Cockle can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce cockle?
Cockle is pronounced /ˈkɒkl̩/ (UK).
What is the plural of cockle?
The plural of cockle is cockles.

Words near cockle in the dictionary

  1. cockish
  2. cockknocker
  3. cockknockers
  4. cocklaird
  5. cocklairds
  6. cockle
  7. cockle wife
  8. cockle wives
  9. cockle-bread
  10. cockleboat
  11. cockleboats

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cockle (page history and authors); cockle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cockle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ഞമണിക്ക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); cockle (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cockle.wav.

Cite this entry: “cockle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cockle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.