cockcrow

See also: cock-crow

English[edit]

From Middle English cok crowe (also as cokkes crowe), equivalent to cock +‎ crow. Likely a suppletive variation of Old English hancrǣd (“cockcrow, dawn”, literally “cock-crowing”), from hana (“cock, rooster”) + crǣd (“crowing”).

cockcrow (countable and uncountable, plural cockcrows)

The time of day at which the first crow of a cockerel is heard; dawn or daybreak; first light
- 1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 175:
  I put the chief of police behind the bar, instructed him in his duties, and we four convivial spirits sprawled along the counter drinking ale and telling yarns till cockcrow.

dawn