COCKATRICE NOUN 1. a mythical reptile with a lethal gaze or breath, commonly said to be hatched by a serpent (or toad) from the egg of a cockerel or rooster; later, more generally: a mythical monster combining, or resulting from the combination of, a cockerel or rooster and a serpent (occasionally, another animal) - a1382 2. a crocodile - c1450 obs. 3. a malicious, treacherous, or destructive person - 1508 rare 4. a prostitute, a whore; often used as a term of reproach or abuse for a woman - 1568 arch. rare ETYMOLOGY from Anglo-Norman and Middle French cocatrice, cocatriz, coketriz, cocadris (crocodile, mythical animal of uncertain kind, aquatic reptile, enemy of the crocodile), from Latin calcatric- , calcatrix (person who tramples upon) from classical Latin calcat-, (past participial stem of calcāre , originally ‘to tread’, in post-classical Latin ‘to tread on the heels of, track, trace out’) + -trix; apparently after ancient Greek ἰχνεύμων (ichneumon, literally ‘tracker, tracer out, hunter out’) FIRST DOCUMENTED USE a1382 - see EXAMPLE below EXAMPLE "...Vp on the eddere and the kokatrice thou shalt go; and thou shalt totrede the leoun and the dragoun..." From: The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal books, in the earliest English versions made from the Latin Vulgate
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