Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A native of the East End of London.
- n. The dialect or accent of the natives of the East End of London.
- adj. Of or relating to cockneys or their dialect.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A spoiled child; hence, a foolish or effeminate person; a simpleton: often used as a term of reproach without a very clear signification.
- n. In the following passages the meaning of the word is uncertain. It is conjectured to mean, in the first three, “a cock” or “a cook,” etc.; in the last, “a cook.”
- n. A native or a permanent resident of London: used slightingly or by way of contempt, and generally with allusion to peculiarities of pronunciation or insularity or narrowness of views.
- n. [capitalized] Same as Cockaigne, 2 (where see extract).
- Pertaining to or like cockneys or Londoners: as, cockney conceit; cockney speech.
- To pamper; fondle; cocker.
Wiktionary
- n. a native or inhabitant of parts of the East End of London
- n. the accent and speech mannerisms of these people
- adj. of, or relating to these people or their accent
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An effeminate person; a spoilt child.
- n. A native or resident of the city of London, especially one living in the East End district; -- sometimes used contemptuously.
- n. the distinctive dialect of a cockney{2}.
- adj. Of or relating to, or like, cockneys.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the nonstandard dialect of natives of the east end of London
- n. a native of the east end of London
- adj. characteristic of Cockneys or their dialect
- adj. relating to or resembling a cockney
Etymologies
- Middle English cokenei, cock's egg, pampered child, city dweller : coken, cock (possibly blend of cok; see cock1, and chiken, chicken; see chicken) + ei, egg (from Old English ǣg). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The first recorded use of the word cockney was in 1521 to suggest an urban fool, a man who believed in an egg laid by a cockerel.”
“Paul best not to get involved in cockney stuff as it’s so terribly lower class.”
Cheeseburger Gothic » There will be a short break in transmission while I get back under this bus.
“You get bits of UK garage, Caribbean steel drums and what can only be described as cockney country rock thrown in but while the 2 Bears are clearly having a laugh, there's a genuine passion for house music there.”
“Getting called cockney, even though I was an Essex Boy.”
“This is of course a cockney view of what, without offence, I will term a cockney proceeding.”
Lines in Pleasant Places Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler
“I have to break a cockney's neck before I can convince him that I know the way I want things done, and they have to be done that way.”
“Thus while students are drawn into Keats's aesthetic, so congruent it seems with their own, they remain at least dimly aware that it emanates from his specific social position as an aspiring "cockney" poet.”
“The 'cockney' of these places differs, and of such pronunciations 'Hague Dutch' is considered the worst, although -- true to the analogy of London -- the best Dutch is heard in”
“Park-like it was, with a kind of cockney ruralness further endorsed by the waste papers and rifled tins of picnickers.”
“This was his library: here he gathered that vast encyclopaedia of human nature, which some are inclined to call "cockney," but if it be,”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cockney’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Realia from Everywhere
Culturally defined terms and expressions from the four corners of the world
fjord, mistral steppe, tornado, tsunami, polder, kiwi, koala, sequoia, Abominable Snowman, paprika, spaghetti, empanada and 299 more...
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denizens
words that answer the question "What do you call someone from ?"
michigander, bay stater, utahn, tarheel, nutmegger, ohioan, vermonter, cantabrigian, jersey cityite, kansas citian, angeleno, sooite and 91 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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1st Listed
Words first listed by me to Wordie; limited to mostly 'real' words.
zeuhl, metaeuphoria, hypertextual, hyperbaric, parachronism, metanoia, prochronism, zao, craton, falsification, nietzschean, hyperconscious and 16 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cockney.

johnmperry in cockney rhyming slang, usually only the first word of the rhyme-pair is used, leading to mystification of non-cockney listeners. Jun 18, 2008