haycock

See also: Haycock

English

Haycocks in a field in Ireland

Alternative forms

• hay-cock

Etymology

From Middle English haycok, hacoke, haycoke; equivalent to hay +‎ cock (“conical heap”).

Noun

haycock (plural haycocks)

1. A small conical pile of hay, or a heap of hay thrown up in a hayfield while the hay is being cured or awaiting relocation to a haystack or barn.

   Synonym: hayshock

   Hypernym: cock

   Coordinate terms: grass-cock (broadly synonymous), hayrick, haystack, rick, stook

   • [1589?], Cutbert Curry-knaue [pseudonym; Thomas Nashe], “To that Most Comicall and Conceited Caualeire Monsieur du Kempe, Iestmonger and Vice-gerent generall to the Ghost of Dicke Tarlton. His Louing Brother Cutbert Curry-knaue Sendeth Greeting.”, in An Almond for a Parrat, or Cutbert Curry-knaues Almes. […], [London]: […] [Eliot’s Court Press], →OCLC, signature A2, recto:

     Brother Kempe, as many alhailes to thy perſon as there be haicocks in Iuly at Pancredge: […]

   • 1645, John Milton, L'Allegro‎^[1]:

     And then in haste her bow'r she leaves,
     With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
     Or if the earlier season lead
     To the tann'd haycock in the mead.

   • [c. 1788–1789], [Jane Austen], “Henry and Eliza: a novel”, in Volume the First, page 87:

     [T]hey perceived lying closely concealed beneath the thick foliage of a Haycock, a beautifull little Girl not more than 3 months old.

   • 1917, Edward Thomas, “Adlestrop”, in Poems, London: Selwyn & Blount, page 40:

     And willows, willow-herb, and grass, / And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, / No whit less still and lonely fair / Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

Derived terms

• Haycock

References

• “haycock”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.