![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coxcomb (KOKS-kohm) - n., (usually spelled cockscomb) the fleshy red pate of a rooster; (hist.) the cap of a court jester, traditionally adorned with a red stripe; (arch.) the head, pate; (hist.) a conceited foolish man, especially one excessively concerned with his appearance and clothes, a fop.
(This doesn't quite fit this week's pattern of noun+noun words, what with genitive ending, but it wasn't actually a theme week anyway.) The jester's cap is, if it's not clear, the connection between a rooster's crown and a fop. The fool sense appeared while it still had the Middle English spelling cokkes comb, the respelling with x first appeared around 1570, and the fop sense showed up in the 17th century.
---L.
(This doesn't quite fit this week's pattern of noun+noun words, what with genitive ending, but it wasn't actually a theme week anyway.) The jester's cap is, if it's not clear, the connection between a rooster's crown and a fop. The fool sense appeared while it still had the Middle English spelling cokkes comb, the respelling with x first appeared around 1570, and the fop sense showed up in the 17th century.
---L.
