blackcock
Americannoun
-
blackcocks
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of blackcock
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at black, cock 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The males have now acquired the banded throats, and indulge in love-antics, much after the fashion of the blackcock.
From Wild Spain (Espa?a agreste) Records of Sport with Rifle, Rod, and Gun, Natural History Exploration by Walter J. Buck
Oh, well, there's no great harm done; if a man has no worse sin on his conscience than shooting a blackcock on the Twelfth, he should sleep sound o' nights.
From Prince Fortunatus by William Black
The blackcock then rejoins his male associates, and the female is left to perform the labours of hatching and rearing her young brood.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 1 "Bisharin" to "Bohea" by Various
The bird, however, to which the name of grouse in all strictness belongs is probably the Tetrao tetrix of Linnaeus—the blackcock and greyhen, as the sexes are respectively called.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 6 "Groups, Theory of" to "Gwyniad" by Various
I remember once, on such a day, taking a noble sportsman who was very keen to shoot a blackcock, up to some black game sitting on a thorn hedge.
From The Confessions of a Poacher by Anonymous
Sweet lass, will ye gang wi' me, Where blackcocks crow, and plovers cry?
From The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century by Charles Rogers
"It is, indeed," she said, "a good morning's hunting to have got five blackcocks, but it was still better when in one morning a king of Norway took five kings and subdued all their kingdoms."
From Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
He was not at all certain that there were no more blackcocks in the county.
From Highways and Byways in Surrey by Hugh Thomson
One day they had been hawking, and when they let slip the falcons, Harald's falcon killed two blackcocks in one flight and three in another.
From Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Out in the clearing the blackcocks with their wide-spread spotted tails were fighting, while the hens strutting near, craning and chattering, probably some gossip about their fighting swains, watched and were delighted with them.
From Beasts, Men and Gods by Ferdinand Ossendowski
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
