rooster Chiefly U.S. and dial.
(ˈruːstə(r))
[f. roost n.1 + -er1.]
1. a. A cock.
| 1772 A. G. Winslow Diary 14 Mar. (1894) 45 Their other dish..contain'd a number of roast fowls—half a dozen, we suppose, & all roosters at this season no doubt. 1806 Balance (Hudson, N.Y.) 22 July 227 (Th.), The New York Rooster—may he continue to crow! 1822 J. Flint Lett. fr. Amer. 264 Rooster, or he-bird.—Cock, the male of the hen. 1836 Backwoods Canada 308 The produce of two hens and a cock, or rooster, as the Yankees term that bird. 1847 H. Melville Omoo lxvi, With a rooster's quill, therefore, a bit of soiled paper, and a stout heart, he set to work. 1870 J. H. B. Nowland Early Reminisc. Indianapolis 149 It was during this canvass [in 1840] that Tom gave to the Democratic party their emblem, which they have claimed ever since, the chicken cock, or rooster. 1882 Garden 20 May 348 At sunrise I was awakened by a sturdy old rooster. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 646 Chalk a circle for a rooster. 1923 E. W. Benjamin Marketing Poultry Products iv. 120 Cock, or Rooster.—These are the mature males. 1951 M. A. Jull Successful Poultry Managem. (ed. 2) xi. 348 A cock or old rooster is a mature male chicken with coarse skin, toughened and darkened meat. |
b. transf. of persons.
| 1785 Grose Dict. Vulgar T., Queer rooster, an informer that pretends to be sleeping, and thereby overhears the conversation of theives in night cellars. 1821 P. Egan Life in London ii. v. 276 Roosters and the ‘peep-o'-day boys’ were out on a prowl for a spree. 1840 Log Cabin 5 Sept. 3/2 Chapman, the great Rooster of the Loco-Foco party,..was formerly one of the editers [sic] of an Infidel paper, the Boston Investigator. 1855 N. Amer. Rev. CXLI. 434 The toughest set of roosters that ever shook the dust of any town. 1871 G. Meredith H. Richmond II. 214 Hang..your talk of a fine girl, like my Janet, as a piece of poultry, you young rooster! 1881 Philad. Rec. No. 3428. 2 It is not..in the nature of things that a rooster in the Legislature should quietly submit to be lectured by a rooster outside of the legislature. 1883 Bird o' Freedom 7 Mar. 3/1 Whether the returned member be a rooster or not time will tell. 1897 Barrère & Leland Dict. Slang II. 156 Queer rooster (American thieves), a man that lodges among thieves to pick up information for the police. 1923 R. D. Paine Comrades of Rolling Ocean xiv. 252 What was that rooster's name? |
c. U.S. A wild violet as used in a children's game.
| 1884 Harper's Mag. June 94/1 Purple violets..were slaughtered by hundreds, for the projecting spur under the curved stem at the base of the flower enabled the boys to hook them together and ‘fight roosters’, as they termed it. 1946 C. Richter Fields 231 In April they played Hens and Roosters, yoking their wild white and blue violets to see which would get its head pulled off. |
d. A bird that is roosting or about to roost.
| 1949 Brit. Birds XLII. 323 The more leisured flight of the roosters [sc. starlings] was in contrast to the steady procession of the migrants. |
2. U.S. (See
quot.)
| 1871 in De Vere Americanisms 262 Rooster..indicates a bill, or proposed law, which will benefit the legislators—and no one else. |
3. rooster comb U.S. = rooster head;
rooster('s) head U.S., the American cowslip,
Dodecatheon meadia, or a wild violet of the genus
Viola; also
attrib.;
rooster tail N. Amer., the curved plume of water thrown up by a speedboat or surfboard.
| 1964 Mrs L. B. Johnson White House Diary 21 May (1970) 142 One little girl..offered me a bunch of red and yellow wildflowers—‘snake tongue’ and ‘rooster comb’. |
| 1894 Jrnl. Amer. Folk-Lore VII. 94 Dodecatheon Meadia, var., shooting stars, roosters' heads. 1934 H. Vines This Green Thicket World 171 One not thicketed might have felt sorry for the blue daisies, white daisies, roosterheads. 1947 Atlantic Monthly July 41/2 Spring not only brought tadpoles but..big bunches of rooster-head violets that the children picked in the woods. |
| 1953 Marine Digest 19 Sept. 29/1 She was boxed in on the first turn by Gale and the two Such Crusts and their combined rooster tails just about sank her. 1956 Sun (Baltimore) 26 Oct. 34/5 It ruled..that it was ‘highly probable’ the wake or fall of water from the ‘rooster tail’ of the boat travelling at high speed had caused the damage. 1963 Pix 28 Sept. 62/4 Rooster-tail, wake of a board. 1976 Telegraph-Jrnl. (St. John, New Brunswick) 7 Aug. 3/3 The small craft skim the river at incredible speeds. Their giant rooster tails sometimes reach a height of 90 feet. |
Hence
ˈroosterish a.| 1898 ‘Mark Twain’ in Harper's Mag. Mar. 536/2 He stands vast and conspicuous..self-satisfied and roosterish. |