cocked hat
- noun
- /kɑkt hæt/
- Archaic
:
sombrero bicorne
- Italians, with cocked hats and imperial importance of manner, are bullying everyone and getting things into a hopeless tangle.
Examples
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-The cocked hat, you fool!
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Everyone is dressed in full-dress naval uniforms of the period, complete with cocked hats, epaulettes, etc.
Fiction book (1994) -
She kept the cocked hat on, and holding it with one hand, she tumbled into bed, onto the quilt comforter, which was probably an expensive antique that had never had sex before.
Fiction book (1997) -
Her captain strides the narrow quarterdeck, a short lowering figure in a cocked hat, blue brass-buttoned tail coat with white facings, and white nankeen breeches.
Fiction book (1991) -
The officer proudly adjusted the brim of his cocked hat before the parade began.
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During the ceremony, the soldiers wore their cocked hats to honor their historic uniforms.
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In the painting, the nobleman is depicted wearing a cocked hat that signifies his rank and status.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A hat with the brim turned up to make two points worn in the 1700s and early 1800s
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward composition of 'cocked' (tilted/slanted) + 'hat', so a B1 learner who knows 'cock' in the sense 'to tilt' and 'hat' can infer it means a hat that is tilted or has its sides turned up. It is a literal descriptive formation rather than an idiom, so the overall meaning is directly derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Cocked hat comes from the way the hat's sides are turned up and fastened into points, so the hat looks like a rooster's comb and appears cocked. That's why cocked hat means a hat with its sides turned up and forming points.