cockyolly
(kɒkɪˈɒlɪ)
In cockyolly bird, a nursery or pet expression for ‘dear little bird’: cf. dicky-bird.
| 1837 Correspondent says, ‘Cockyolly bird was familiar to me as a schoolboy in 1837’. 1857 Kingsley Two Y. Ago xv. So Major Campbell prepares the charming little cockyoly birds. 1863 ― Water-bab. viii. 310 All the butterflies and cockyoly birds would fly past me. 1877 Besant & Rice Son of Vulc. i. xi. 118 The little cockyolly bird is taken in the net. |