An archaic term for a young rooster or cockerel; sometimes used to mean a boastful or swaggering person.
From 'cock' combined with a diminutive or augmentative suffix '-alan,' possibly influenced by Spanish 'gallo' (rooster). The term likely emerged in Early Modern English as a playful variant of cockerel.
Medieval and Renaissance writers loved creating these elaborate 'cock-' words that mostly disappeared—'cockalan' is like finding a dinosaur in a word fossil record! It shows how writers once had dozens of words for roosters and rooster-like behavior.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.