▪ I. † cocasse, n. Obs.
Used by Bale for a female cook (as if cookess); but cf. F. cocasse dial. ‘femme ou fille ridicule, femme ou fille ivrogne’, and see Littré.
| 1546 Bale Eng. Votaries ii. (1550) 77 Their processe was all agaynst the cocasses or she cookes of y⊇ curates. |
▪ II. ‖ cocasse, a.
(kɔkas)
[Fr.]
Droll, ridiculous. Hence cocasserie, that which is amusing or bizarre.
| 1868 W. James Let. 12 Feb. in R. B. Perry Tht. & Char. W. James (1935) I. 262, I took up Balzac's Modeste Mignon the other day... It must be one of the very early ones, for the extraordinary research and effort in the style is perfectly cocasse. 1934 C. Lambert Music Ho! ii. 123 In spite of his [sc. Satie's] verbal wit, and his many blagues and cocasseries, no composer, not even Debussy, took a more essentially serious view of his art. 1960 J. Lodwick Asparagus Trench 7 A collaboration as cocasse as any since that between Balzac and certain long-extinct copper mines. 1963 Listener 7 Feb. 260/3 Two items which the late James Agate would have termed cocasseries. |