cockle-shell
(ˈkɒk(ə)lʃɛl)
See cockle n.2
1. The shell of the cockle; usually, a single valve of the shell. Formerly applied much more generally, including e.g. the scallop-shell worn by pilgrims to St. James of Compostella.
c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. i. 904 With cokille shelles brente. 1530 Palsgr. 206/2 Cokell shell, coquille. a 1631 Drayton Noah's Flood (R.), The ark..doth so excell That ship, as that ship doth a cockle-shell. a 1711 Ken Hymnar. Poet. Wks. 1721 II. 71 They might more easily contain In Cockle-shell the whole Atlantick Main. 1747 Wesley Prim. Physic (1762) 104 A pound of fresh calcined Cockle Shells. 1758 R. Brookes Gen. Pract. Physic (ed. 3) II. 8 Let the patient..drink.. Oister or Cockle-shell Lime-Water. 1877 Blades Pref. to Caxton's Dict. ix, Wearers of the Cockle-shell, the emblems of a pilgrimage to Compostella. 1884 Lovell Edible Brit. Mollusca 44 Cockle-shells are used as cultch for the oyster spat to adhere to..The great advantage of cockle-shells cultch is, etc. |
† b. A spiral gastropod shell. [F. coquille.]
1538 Leland Itin. I. 55 Writhen about with Degrees like Turninges of Cokilshilles, to cum to the Top. |
2. An imitation of a cockle or scallop-shell, e.g. in the collar of the order of St. Michael.
1488 in Tytler Hist. Scot. (1864) II. 393 A collar of cokkilschellis contenand xxiiii schellis of gold. |
3. A small frail boat or vessel. Also attrib.
[Cf. 1631 in 1.] 1829 Blackw. Mag. XXVI. In a bit cockle-shell o' an open boat. 1836 W. Irving Astoria I. 290 Floating for thousands of miles in a cockle shell, down a turbulent stream. 1876 M. E. Braddon J. Haggard's Dau. I. 15 None but a madman would sail in yon cockle-shell with a gale coming. |
† 4. nonce-wd. Shallowness, unsteadiness. Obs.
1711 Shaftesbury Charac. (1737) III. 160 We shall find the ridicule rising full as strongly against the professors of the higher as the lower kind. Cockleshell abounds with each. |
Hence cockle-shelled a., adorned with a cockle-shell; having a cockle-shell as a badge.
1635 R. N. Camden's Hist. Eliz. i. 66 The Ensignes of the Cockle-shelled Order of Saint Michael. |