cockatrice

[kok-uh-tris]

noun

a legendary monster with a deadly glance, supposedly hatched by a serpent from the egg of a cock, and commonly represented with the head, legs, and wings of a cock and the body and tail of a serpent.Compare basilisk(def 1).

a venomous serpent. Isa. 11:8.

Origin of cockatrice

1350–1400; Middle English cocatrice < Middle French cocatris < Medieval Latin caucātrīces (plural), Latin *calcātrīx (see -trix), feminine of *calcātor tracker, equivalent to calcā(re) to tread, verbal derivative of calx heel + -tor -tor; rendering Greek ichneúmon ichneumon

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for cockatrice

Historical Examples of cockatrice

The monks said that Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched a cockatrice.
Short Studies on Great Subjects
James Anthony Froude
Supporters,—not captives nor victims; the Cockatrice and Adder.
Our Fathers Have Told Us
John Ruskin
Shakspeare, for example, uses Lucrece and cockatrice as genitives.
Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853
Various
It never occurred to him that the cockatrice might not believe him.
The Book of Dragons
Edith Nesbit
Edmund gasped once or twice, and then ran into the cave to tell the cockatrice.
The Book of Dragons
Edith Nesbit

British Dictionary definitions for cockatrice

cockatrice

noun

a legendary monster, part snake and part cock, that could kill with a glance

another name for basilisk (def. 1)

Word Origin for cockatrice

C14: from Old French cocatris, from Medieval Latin cocatrix, from Late Latin calcātrix trampler, tracker (translating Greek ikhneumon ichneumon), from Latin calcāre to tread, from calx heel

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for cockatrice

late 14c., from Old French cocatriz, altered (by influence of coq) from Late Latin *calcatrix, from Latin calcare "to tread" (from calx (1) "heel"), as translation of Greek ikhneumon, literally "tracker, tracer."

In classical writings, an Egyptian animal of some sort, the mortal enemy of the crocodile, which it tracks down and kills. This vague sense became hopelessly confused in the Christian West, and in England the word ended up applied to the equivalent of the basilisk. A serpent hatched from a cock's egg, it was fabled to kill by its glance and could be slain only by tricking it into seeing its own reflection. Belief in them persisted even among the educated because the word was used in the KJV several times to translate a Hebrew word for "serpent." In heraldry, a beast half cock, half serpent.