Word.ws English Dictionary

cockling

cockling is the present participle and gerund of cockle.

Meaning of cockle

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.

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

See all 13 meanings of cockle

Noun

cockling (plural cocklings)

  1. A young, small, or immature cock.
    • These cocklings cocker'd we bewail too late, When that we see our off-spring gaily bent, Women manwood, and men effeminate.1725, Sir Philip Sidney, The works of the Honourable Sir Philip Sidney
    • Take warning in time, cocklings; look sharp — but not in this direction, if you please.'1858, The Knickerbocker: or, New-York monthly magazine, volume 54, page 521

Forms of cockling

pluralcocklings

Origin of cockling

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

From cock + -ling.

Questions about cockling

What does cockling mean?
Cockling means a young, small, or immature cock.
What is cockling the present participle and gerund of?
Cockling is the present participle and gerund of cockle.
What part of speech is cockling?
Cockling is a noun.
What is the plural of cockling?
The plural of cockling is cocklings.

Words near cockling in the dictionary

  1. cocklickers
  2. cocklicking
  3. cocklicks
  4. cocklight
  5. cocklike
  6. cockling
  7. cocklings
  8. cockloft
  9. cocklofts
  10. cockly
  11. Cockman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cockling (page history and authors); cockle (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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Cite this entry: “cockling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cockling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.