ni noun
1.
( sometimes initial capital letter ) a native or inhabitant of the East End district of London, England, traditionally, one born and reared within the sound of Bow bells.
2.
( sometimes initial capital letter ) the pronunciation or dialect of cockneys.
3.
Obsolete.
a.
a pampered child.
b.
a squeamish, affected, or effeminate person.
adjective
4.
( sometimes initial capital letter ) of or pertaining to cockneys or their dialect.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To cockney
00:10
Cockney
is always a great word to know.
So is callithumpian. Does it mean:
| a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
Collins
World English Dictionary
cockney (ˈkɒknɪ) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| 1. | (often capital) a native of London, esp of the working class born in the East End, speaking a characteristic dialect of English. Traditionally defined as someone born within the sound of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church |
| 2. | the urban dialect of London or its East End |
| 3. | (Austral) a young snapper fish |
| —adj | |
| 4. | characteristic of cockneys or their dialect of English |
| [C14: from cokeney, literally: cock's egg, later applied contemptuously to townsmen, from cokene, genitive plural of cok | |
| 'cockneyish | |
| —adj | |
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History
cockney
c.1600, from M.E. cokenei "spoiled child, milksop," orig. cokene-ey "cock's egg" (mid-14c.). Most likely disentangling of the etymology is to start from O.E. cocena "cock's egg" -- genitive plural of coc "cock" + æg "egg" -- medieval term for "runt of a clutch," extended derisively c.1520s to "town
dweller," gradually narrowing thereafter to residents of a particular neighborhood in the East End of London. The accent so called from 1890, but speech peculiarities were noted from 17c.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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