cockshut
nounEtymology From Middle English cockshoot or a compound of cock (noun) + shut (verb).
1
Obsolete A kind of net for catching woodcock.
2
Twilight, when poultry would be shut in for the night.
Otherwise obsolete
- Sir Richard Ratcliff: Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself, Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.1593, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Richard the Third', act 5, scene 3:
- 1 Fai.: Mistress, this is only spite: For you would not yesternight Kiss him in the cock-shut light.1603, Ben Jonson, The Satyr; republished in The Works of Ben Jonson, volume 6, London: For G. and W. Nicol, et al, 1816, page 473:
1 more example
- In the quiet cockshut after a heavy darg, a boonfellow likes to croodle with her fanger (or he with his bellibone) as they watch the sunset through the eyethurl.2012 November, Leon Robert McNarry, “The Erendrake”, in Poems, Tales & Whimsy, Victoria, B.C.: FriesenPress, →ISBN, page 28:
- Synonyms
- crepusculum, mirkning, nightfall
- Derived terms
- cockshut time