cock up

See also: cockup and cock-up

English

Etymology

The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a 1948 Dictionary of Forces’ Slang. The OED suggests that it derives ultimately from the noun cock, but gives no further detail. The nature of the earliest citation suggests that this expression entered the wider language from military slang, making etymologies from typesetting or archery (see below) seem unlikely.

The term is sometimes attributed to the days of manual typesetting, when a letter that had become wedged slightly higher than the other letters on the line was said to be “cocked up”.

Another claim relates to medieval archery. One of the three feathers on an arrow is a cock’s feather. If the arrow was incorrectly placed on the bow for drawing and release, the arrow would go off course because of the cock’s feather being up and therefore the arrow positioned wrongly on the bow. This was then known as a “cock up”.

Pronunciation

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Verb

cock up (third-person singular simple present cocks up, present participle cocking up, simple past and past participle cocked up)

1. (transitive, intransitive, chiefly UK, Commonwealth, Ireland, slang, mildly vulgar) To ruin (something) unintentionally; to fuck up, mess up, or screw up.

   Synonyms: (vulgar slang) balls up, (Commonwealth vulgar slang) bollocks up, (Commonwealth vulgar slang) bugger up, (vulgar slang) fuck up, mess up, muck up, (vulgar) screw up

   • 1876 May – 1877 July, Anthony Trollope, “‘Wonderful Bird!’”, in The American Senator […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1877, →OCLC, page 282:

     It was cocking her up with gimcrack notions about ladies till she'd be ashamed to look at her own hands after she had done a day's work with them.

   • 1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 146:

     I'd take the stick to his back and beat him while I could stand over him—as I done many a time before. The mother, you know, she cocks him up with this and that …

Derived terms

• cock-up (noun)
• cockup (noun)

Translations

to ruin (something) unintentionally

• Finnish: pilata (fi), tärvellä (fi), sotkea (fi), möhlätä (fi)
• German: verbocken (de), versauen (de), versemmeln (de)