Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One of the sharp spurs on the legs of a male gallinaceous bird.
- n. A small wedge of clay or earthenware placed between articles of pottery to prevent their adhering during and after the process of glazing.
- n. In botany: A North American species of thorn, Cratægus Crus-galli, frequently cultivated as an ornamental shrub.
- n. Pisonia aculeata, a West Indian shrub.
- n. A small shell-fish.
- n. The ergot of rye. See ergot.
- n. In British Honduras, Acacia spadicigera, a shrub or small tree armed with curved spines about two inches long, produced in pairs at the base of each branch and each leaf. These thorns are usually hollowed out by ants and serve them as nests.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) A variety of Cratægus, or hawthorn (Cratægus Crus-galli), having long, straight thorns; -- called also
Cockspur thorn .
WordNet 3.0
- n. small spiny West Indian tree
- n. widely grown stout Old World hay and pasture grass
Etymologies
- cock + spur (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Her life so bare that she lacked buttons, for he noted that the top of her dress was held to with a long briar from a cockspur bush.”
“In the way of fruit-bearing shade trees he recommends sugar maple, flowering dogwood, white and cockspur thorn, native red mulberry, tupelo, black cherry, choke cherry, and mountain ash.”
“The peas are bearing well and the grass is very high, and it will make splendid hay, but I will not mow it until I feel sure there is not a single cockspur left.”
“We picked nearly a barrelful of cockspur roots from the field.”
“The little lady hath no shoon, no skirt that holds together, save by the grace of cockspur thorns that bind the tatters.”
“He took not a spark of interest in the gaming cocks we raised together to compete at the local contests and at the fair, and knew not a gaff from a cockspur.”
“There is a tradition that during the war of the Revolution the long spines of the thorn were occasionally used by the American women for pins, none of which were manufactured in the country; probably it was the cockspur variety, which bears the longest and most slender spines, and is now in flower.”
“Large plains, with thorny jungles and bushes of the long cockspur thorn interspersed, formed the character of the ground.”
“There was a bush resembling our hawthorn, which, on examination, proved to be the cockspur hawthorn, with fruit as large as cherries, pulpy, and of a pleasant tartness not much unlike to tamarinds.”
“We very soon bagged three or four brace a-piece of jungle fowl and pea fowl, as well as some black and red partridges, a hare, some pigeons, and two little mouse deer; when in a grassy hollow before us, surrounded by jungle, and interspersed with bushes of the long cockspur thorn, we saw a herd of fifty or more deer feeding quietly and not aware of our approach.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cockspur’.
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cockspur.
brtom "In amazon costume, hard hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she strikes her welt constantly."
Joyce, Ulysses, 15 Feb 8, 2007