cockle
1 Americannoun
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any bivalve mollusk of the genus Cardium, having somewhat heart-shaped, radially ribbed valves, especially C. edule, the common edible species of Europe.
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any of various allied or similar mollusks.
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a cockle in fabric.
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a small, crisp candy of sugar and flour, bearing a motto.
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
idioms
noun
noun
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any sand-burrowing bivalve mollusc of the family Cardiidae, esp Cardium edule ( edible cockle ) of Europe, typically having a rounded shell with radiating ribs
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any of certain similar or related molluscs
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short for cockleshell
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a wrinkle or puckering, as in cloth or paper
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a small furnace or stove
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one's deepest feelings (esp in the phrase warm the cockles of one's heart )
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cocklesimple
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cocklessimple
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have cockledperfect
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has cockledperfect
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am cocklingprogressive
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are cocklingprogressive
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is cocklingprogressive
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have been cocklingperfect progressive
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has been cocklingperfect progressive
Past
-
cockledsimple
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had cockledperfect
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was cocklingprogressive
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were cocklingprogressive
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had been cocklingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cockle1
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English cokel, cokil(le), from Old French coquille, “shell, shell of a mollusk, mollusk,” from Vulgar Latin cocchīlia (unattested), from Latin conchylia, plural of conchȳlium, from Greek konchȳ́lion, equivalent to konchȳ́l(ē) “mussel, cockle” + -ion diminutive suffix; compare Old English -cocc in sǣ-cocc literally, “sea-cockle” from Vulgar Latin coccus (unattested) for Latin concha conch
Origin of cockle2
First recorded before 1000; Middle English cok(k)el, Old English coccel; further origin uncertain; perhaps from Late Latin cocculus (unattested), diminutive of coccus “berry, seed” ( see coccus ( def. ))
Vocabulary lists containing cockle
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:
“This tells us that all of those nearly identical cancers came from a single cockle in the past,” Metzger said.
From Seattle Times ● May 22, 2023
She hopes new cockle research will help explain how changing ocean acidity and marine heat affect the transmission or lethal effects of the cancer, and offer methods to protect other native shellfish.
From Seattle Times ● May 22, 2023
Shell Beach is made up of billions of shells, specifically cockle shells that breed unchecked due to the high salinity of the water and the lack of predators able to survive in all that salt.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 23, 2017
Gangmaster Lin Liang Ren was jailed for 14 years in 2006 after being found guilty of manslaughter and helping the cockle pickers break immigration laws.
From BBC ● Jan. 15, 2015
Oysters are of all the following kinds: there are the pinna, the mussel, the oyster, the cteis, the solen, the cockle, the limpet, the small oyster, the balanus.
From The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athen?us by Athen?us
I considered the monkfish, the mackerel, the cockles.
From Salon ● Mar. 6, 2025
And the vision of Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought or, indeed, Elon Musk being frog-marched off to the hoosegow will warm the cockles of many a heart.
From Slate ● Feb. 13, 2025
Heart cockles and many other marine animals use a special form of calcium carbonate called aragonite to make their shells.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 2, 2024
"But there's certain things we do in Wales brilliantly like cockles, oysters, lamb, chorizo and Welsh whisky - and they signposted me to dishes I could try or ingredients I could use in dishes."
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2023
Then as now, the Northwest Coast, thick with fruit and fruits de mer, was a gatherer’s paradise: wild strawberries, wild blueberries, soapberries, huckleberries, thimbleberries, salmonberries; clams, cockles, mussels, oysters; flounder, hake, salmon.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.
From Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants by Head, James H.
She had a very sweet, kind face, all cockled with wrinkles like a sheet of crumpled tissue paper, but very beautiful in its age.
From The Dictator by McCarthy, Justin
Even in the bedroom there were embroidered pin-cushions, landscapes in cross-stitch, and crosses in folded paper, so elaborately cockled as to show the senseless labor they had cost.
From The Commission in Lunacy by Balzac, Honoré de
Only a comparatively light pressure should be given, or the lining up of the headbands or back will become cockled and detached.
From Bookbinding, and the Care of Books A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians by Rooke, Noel
But even laying aside the question of the coagulation of the albumen, the paper, unless it is ironed, remains so "cockled up," that it is not only unsightly, but very difficult to use.
From Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Bell, George
It is 10 years since the Morecambe Bay cockling tragedy when the notorious tides and channels claimed the lives of 23 Chinese cockle workers.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2014
This makes a joint free of cockling, and when dry the inking can be completed across the joint.
From How to Observe in Archaeology by Various
The book may now be shut up if a waterproof sheet is put at each end to prevent the damp of the cover from cockling the paper.
From Bookbinding, and the Care of Books A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians by Rooke, Noel
More in the foreground, in the same direction, there spreads a troubled cockling sea of the Great Conglomerate.
From The Cruise of the Betsey or, A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist or, Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland by Symonds, W. S. (William Samuel)
Why should she pretend not to know a friend—least of all when she’d been cockling?
From Pixie O'Shaughnessy by Groome, William H. C.
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.
