- fictitious narratives, in verse or prose, of murders, fires, and terrible accidents, sold in the streets as true accounts. The man who hawks them, a patterer, often changes the scene of the awful event to suit the taste of the neighbourhood he is trying to delude. Possibly a corruption of _cook_, a cooked statement, or maybe “the story of a cock and a bull” may have had something to do with the term. Improvements in newspapers, especially in those published in the evening, and increased scepticism on the part of the public, have destroyed this branch of a once-flourishing business.
More About cocks
Position in the dictionary: 707 of 4022 slang words.Next words in the dictionary: cockshy, cocksure, cocky, cocoa-nut, cocum, cod, coddam, codds, codger, coffee-shop
Previous words in the dictionary: cockney, cockles, cocker, cocked-hat-shaped, cocked-hat-club, cockalorum, cock-robin shop, cock-eye, cock-and-pinch, cock-and-hen-club