† ˈcockshoot Obs.
Also 5–6 -shote, -shott, -shoote.
[f. cock n.1 9 c + shoot.]
A broad way or glade in a wood, through which woodcocks, etc. might dart or ‘shoot’, so as to be caught by nets stretched across the opening.
The statements that the net itself was the cockshoot, and that the proper spelling is cock-shut, appear to be dictionary blunders, founded on a misunderstanding of the word as something to ‘shut’ in or enclose the birds.
| 1530 Palsgr. 206/2 Cockesshote to take wodcockes with, uolee. 1601 No Whipping nor Tripping, etc., A silly honest creature may do well To watch a cocke-shoote, or a limed bush. 1651 Ogilby æsop 6 When loud winds make cock⁓shoots thro' the wood, Bending down mighty okes, I firm have stood. 1661 Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. 180 They are taken by nets, in Cock shoots. 1691 Blount Law Dict., Gallivolatium, a Cockshoot or Cockglade. |
b. Very common in topographical names in England as in Cockshott Wood, Farm, Close, etc.; retained even in cleared land where cockshoot woods have formerly been.
c. transf.
| 1587 Harrison England i. xviii. (1881) iii. 133 They hang vp stones which naturallie haue holes in them..such a stone were an apt cockeshot for the diuell to run through. |
d. Comb., as cockshoot-cord, cockshoot-net.
| 1496 Bk. St. Albans, Fishing H j, Take thenne and frette hym faste wyth a cockeshotecorde and bynde him to a fourme. 1566 Wills & Inv. N.C. (1835) 266 One cockshott net. |