by cock and pie

English

Phrase

by cock and pie

1. (archaic) A mild oath.

   Synonym: by cock

   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 41, column 1:

     By cocke and pie, you ſhall not chooſe, Sir: come, come.

   • 1655, William Barton, Man's Monitor, or, the Free-school of Virtue; Holding Forth the Duties Required and Sins Forbidden in the Two Tables of the Law, London: W.D. for T. Underhill, unnumbered page; republished in Early English Books Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Text Creation Partnership, p. 2011:

     By cock a pie and Mous-foot Dent bring's in, / Examples to express forbidden Sin:

   • 1854, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], chapter XI, in The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC, pages 119–120:

     "How much a glass, think you?" says Fred, filling another bumper. "A half-crown, think ye?—a half-crown, Honeyman? By cock and pye, it is not worth a bender."

References

• “by cock and pie” under “cock, n.⁶”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.