Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Darnel, Lolium temulentum; rye-grass, L. perenne; tare; a weed generally.
  • noun The corn-rose or corn-cockle, Lychnis (Agrostemma) Githago.
  • noun A young cock; a cockerel.
  • noun The body or fire-chamber of an air-stove, usually made of fire-brick.
  • noun A kind of kiln or stove for drying hops.
  • noun In porcelain manufacturing, a large stove used for drying biscuit-ware which has been dipped in glaze, preparatory to burning.
  • To cry like a cock.
  • noun An Australian bivalve mollusk, Cardium tenuicostatum; also, a member of the genus Chione.
  • noun A small crisp confection of sugar stiffened with flour, variously flavored, and of a pink, light-yellow, or white color. Mottoes were printed on them in red letters.
  • noun A pucker or wrinkle; an unevenness, as in cloth or glass.
  • noun A disease of wheat caused by a nematoid worm, Telenchus tritici, which infests the grain and causes it to become deformed.
  • To pucker or contract into wrinkles, as cloth or glass.
  • To rise into frequent ridges, as the waves of a chopping sea.
  • To make a slight score on the cogs or teeth of a mill, as a guide for cutting off their ends, so that the whole may be given a truly circular form.
  • To cause to pucker in wrinkles: as, rain will cockle silk.
  • noun A mollusk of the family Cardiidæ and genus Cardium; especially, the common edible species of Europe, Cardium edule; the shell of such mollusks.
  • noun An equivalve bivalve, resembling or related to mollusks of the genus Cardium.
  • noun A univalve mollusk of the family Muricidæ; the murex or purple-fish.
  • noun A ringlet or crimp.
  • noun [See cockle, verb] The instrument used in cockling the cogs of a mill.
  • noun Same as cockle, 2 .
  • noun To be hanged: from the noise made while strangling.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A plant or weed that grows among grain; the corn rose (Luchnis Githage).
  • noun The Lotium, or darnel.
  • transitive verb To cause to contract into wrinkles or ridges, as some kinds of cloth after a wetting.
  • transitive verb waves dashing against each other with a short and quick motion.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A bivalve mollusk, with radiating ribs, of the genus Cardium, especially Cardium edule, used in Europe for food; -- sometimes applied to similar shells of other genera.
  • noun A cockleshell.
  • noun The mineral black tourmaline or schorl; -- so called by the Cornish miners.
  • noun engraving The fire chamber of a furnace.
  • noun A hop-drying kiln; an oast.
  • noun The dome of a heating furnace.
  • noun a hat ornamented with a cockleshell, the badge of a pilgrim.
  • noun winding or spiral stairs.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several field weeds, such as the corn cockle, Agrostemma githago, and Lolium temulentum.
  • noun Any of various edible European bivalve mollusks, of the family Cardiidae, having heart-shaped shells.
  • noun The shell of such a mollusk.
  • noun plural One’s innermost feelings (only in the expression “the cockles of one’s heart”).
  • noun A wrinkle, pucker
  • noun hence A defect in sheepskin; firm dark nodules caused by the bites of keds on live sheep
  • verb To wrinkle, pucker

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb to gather something into small wrinkles or folds
  • noun common edible European bivalve
  • noun common edible, burrowing European bivalve mollusk that has a strong, rounded shell with radiating ribs
  • verb stir up (water) so as to form ripples

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French coquille, from Vulgar Latin *cocchilia, form of Latin conchylia, from Ancient Greek κογχύλιον (konkhylion), diminutive of κογχύλη (konkhylès, "mussel").

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Examples

  • Or has it been an accident that a nation which loved the sea and counted everything that floated human, sent its sons faring forth in cockle-shells to a land when there were still great spaces to be occupied?

    Imperial Plans in Education 1919

  • And the cockle are the children of the wicked one.

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete The Challoner Revision Anonymous

  • And the cockle are the children of the wicked one.

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Book 47: Matthew The Challoner Revision

  • And the cockle are the children of the wicked one.

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete Anonymous

  • There are plants called cockle-burs whose seed-pods are provided with stickers in every direction, so that anything brushing against them is sure to pick them up.

    A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga William Walker Atkinson 1897

  • And I shall call the cockle-shells papa, for they are the biggest and strongest; and the dingle-bells shall be brother Hobart, and the cowslips brother

    Mother Goose in Prose 1887

  • It took the opening credits of Roger Vadim's 1968 sci-fi send-up Barbarella -- a naked Jane Fonda floating in space to the accompaniment of the oh-so-'60s theme song "Barbarella, psychedella/There's a kind of cockle shell about you" -- to convince us otherwise.

    Michael Sigman: Memories of a Great Friend Michael Sigman 2010

  • It took the opening credits of Roger Vadim's 1968 sci-fi send-up Barbarella -- a naked Jane Fonda floating in space to the accompaniment of the oh-so-'60s theme song "Barbarella, psychedella/There's a kind of cockle shell about you" -- to convince us otherwise.

    Michael Sigman: Memories of a Great Friend Michael Sigman 2010

  • It took the opening credits of Roger Vadim's 1968 sci-fi send-up Barbarella -- a naked Jane Fonda floating in space to the accompaniment of the oh-so-'60s theme song "Barbarella, psychedella/There's a kind of cockle shell about you" -- to convince us otherwise.

    Michael Sigman: Memories of a Great Friend Michael Sigman 2010

  • It took the opening credits of Roger Vadim's 1968 sci-fi send-up Barbarella -- a naked Jane Fonda floating in space to the accompaniment of the oh-so-'60s theme song "Barbarella, psychedella/There's a kind of cockle shell about you" -- to convince us otherwise.

    Michael Sigman: Memories of a Great Friend Michael Sigman 2010

Comments

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  • It warms the cockles of my heart!

    December 27, 2007

  • cockles and mussels alive, alive oh

    August 22, 2009