by cock and pie
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English
Phrase
- (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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , 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: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
