Cocky

How to spell cocky

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cocky

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cocky mean?

1. adjectiveConceited and overconfident in a cheeky, boastful way.

Cocky in a sentence

• The new recruit was a little too cocky for his own good.

• Winning the first round made her cocky about the rest of the tournament.

Where does cocky come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Cocky grew out of the noun cock, the Old English word cocc for a male domestic fowl, a name probably imitating the bird's crowing call. The rooster has long been a byword for swagger, strutting around the yard, puffing out its chest, and crowing as though it owns the place, so by the late eighteenth century the adjective cocky had been coined to describe people who behaved in just that bumptious, self-important way. The simple adjective suffix -y, meaning roughly 'full of' or 'having the quality of', was attached to give a sense of someone full of rooster-like bravado. It is worth remembering that the same proud bird gave English the verb 'to crow' about a success and the phrase 'cock of the walk', both of which capture the same boastful image. The spelling stays close to its plain root: just the three letters of cock followed by a single y, with no hidden silent letters to trip a writer up.

How the word is built

• cock (rooster, from Old English cocc)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'having the quality of')