cocky

[Eng. cock (1), s.; -y.] Conceited, stuck-up, impudent. cocky-baby, s. A popular name for a plant, Arum maculatum . glomerata, (2) Digit aria sanguinalis. "If the hard stalks of the cocksfoot had been in sufficient quantity, they would most probably have prevented the disease from attacking the sheep."-G. Sinclair: Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis, p. 9. cocks-head, s. [Eng. cock's; head.] 1. Onobrychis sativa , and C. Caput - gall i . 2. Papaver Rhœas , P. dubium , and P. Argemone , three species of poppy. ( Scotch .) 1. Of the forms cocoa and coco (but of these coco exists only in the compound coco - nut , cocoa -nut): The fruit of the palm described under 2. [COCOA- NUT.] the palm-trees. It is the Cocos nucifera of bot an- 2. One of the best known and the most prized of all ists. [Cocos.] Its appropriate habitat is the coast of islands or continents, between 25° of Northern and the same parallel of Southern latitude; thus it abounds along the coasts of the South Sea Islands, of India, of South America, and other places. It is sometimes found inland, even to the elevation of 2,900 feet above the sea, but it does not abound or flourish away from the sea; thus while there are many millions of them along the sea-coast of India, considerable regions in the interior may be traversed without more than two or three cocoa-nuts being seen. The tree rises to the height of sixty to ninety feet. The stem is slender and marked by transverse rings, being the scars left by leaves now fallen. At Bombay and elsewhere the natives may be seen climbing up the cocoa-nut trees by means of those rings, and descending again with the fruit, their frail support against falling being a rope made into a large loop encircling their waist and the stem of the tree. Some palms have fan-shaped leaves, others are "feathery palm-trees." The cocoa-nut belongs to the latter category; its leaves, generally 12-15 in number, like gigantic ostrich feathers, exist in a bunch or tuft at the summit of the unbranched stem. A tree produces about 80 or 100 nuts annually. The uses of the cocoa-nut troe are innumerable. For those of the fruit see COCOANUT. The juice which flows from its wounded spathes is called in India toddy (q. v.), and may be fermented into excellent wine, and an intoxicating liquor made from it, arrack . Or the sugar itself may be separated, when it is called Jaggery. The unexpanded terminal bud is a delicate article of food; the leaves are made into thatch for dwellings, or into baskets and buckets, or materials for fences, or as substitutes for paper to write on. The midrib of the leaves serves for oars: their ashes yield potash; the reticulated substance at their base cradles, and it is said a coarse kind of cloth. The hard case of the stem is made into drums, besides being used in the construction of huts; the lower part is so hard as to take on a polish making it resemble agate. The root is sometimes masticated instead of the areca-nut, and the fibers made in Brazil into small baskets. (Lindley, .) "The dream is past; and thou hast found again Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams, And homestall thatched with leaves."