different between peacock vs meacock

English

Etymology

From Middle English pecok, pekok, pocok, pacok, equivalent to pea (“peafowl; peacock”) +? cock. Compare Old Norse páfugl (“peacock”, literally “pea-fowl”), and English peahen, peachick, etc.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?pik?k/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?pi?k?k/

Noun

peacock (plural peacocks)

1. A male peafowl, especially Pavo cristatus, notable for its brilliant iridescently ocellated tail.
2. A peafowl (of the genus Pavo or Afropavo), either male or female.
3. A vainglorious person [from the 14th c.].
4. (entomology) Any of various Asian species of papilionid butterflies of the genus Papilio.

Synonyms

• peafowl (ornithology)

Hyponyms

• peachick (“young peafowl”)
• peacock (“male peafowl”)
• peahen (“female peafowl”)

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Hawaiian: p?kake
  • ? English: pikake

Translations

Verb

peacock (third-person singular simple present peacocks, present participle peacocking, simple past and past participle peacocked)

1. (intransitive) To strut about proudly.
2. (intransitive) To engage in peacocking, ostentatious dress or behaviour to impress women.

See also

• pajock

English

Etymology

Probably a blend of meek +? peacock, or from meek +? -cock (“diminutive suffix”). For use of cock as a diminutive suffix, see also niddicock.

Noun

meacock (plural meacocks)

1. (obsolete) An uxorious, effeminate, or spiritless man; a meek man who dotes on his wife, or is henpecked.
   • 1593-1594, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, ii 1

     Petruchio: How tame, when men and women are alone / A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.

   • 1604, Thomas Decker and Thomas Middleton, The Honest Whore

     Viola: a woman’s well holp’d up with such a meacock. I had rather have a husband that would swaddle me thrice a day, than such a one that will be gull’d twice in half an hour.

   • 1876, Henry Taylor, Philip Van Artevelde., A Dramatic Romance., In Two Parts., Henry S. King & Co. (London), page 86

     Earl: A man that as much knowledge has of war / As I of brewing mead ! ... A bookish nursling of the monks—a meacock !

References

• meacock in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.