A legendary monstrous creature, part rooster and part reptile (usually with a serpent's tail), said to kill with its look or breath.
From Middle French 'cockatrice' and Medieval Latin 'calcatrix,' influenced by 'cock' (rooster). The creature was inspired by conflating the rooster with the basilisk (a serpent from classical mythology), creating a hybrid medieval monster.
Medieval people created the cockatrice by mashing together a rooster and a basilisk because they needed more monsters! It's pure imaginative fantasy, but people wrote about it so seriously that it appeared in bestiaries as if it were real—showing how words create belief.
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