Dictionary

pillicock en · NOUN

Etymology

From Middle English pilkoc, equivalent to an uncertain first element + cock (“a male chicken; slang term for a penis”). Compare the earlier surname Pylcock etc., as well as pillock, Scots pillie (“a penis”), Jutland regional Danish piller and pillerkok (“a penis”), regional Norwegian pill (“a penis”), and Swedish pillesnopp (“wiener, (small) penis”).

Meanings

1. (archaic) A penis.
   • Edgar, riffing on the sound of the word ‘pelican’, jumps to an old nursery rhyme which starts with the word ‘Pillicock’. He omits the second line, favouring gibberish instead—or a hunting cry? The full couplet is: Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill If he's not gone, he sits there still. 2013, Nick Buchanan, What Happens in Shakespeare's, King Lear, page 248:
   • Al þus eld me for-dede... Y ne mai no more of loue done, a. 1325, "Elde" in the Kildare Poems
   • Edg. Pilicock sate on pelicocks hill, a lo lo lo. c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene xi]:
2. (endearing, obsolete) A boy or man.
   • A pillicocke, a darling, or a wanton, or a minion. 1598, John Florio, A Worlde of Wordes:

Forms

Deriveds

pillicock hill · pillock

Synonyms

boy and man (darling) · penis (penis)