chanticleer
/ˈtʃɑːntɪˌklɪə/
Etymology
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From Middle English Chauntecleer, from Old French Chantecler (modern French Chanteclair), the proper name of the cock in the literary cycle of Reynard the Fox, that also gave origin to chantecler, the name of a chicken breed; from chanter (“to sing, to crow”) + cler (“clear, clearly”).
Attested in English since 1250–1300.
chanticleer means A domestic rooster or cock, especially in fables and fairy tales. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.
chanticleer is pronounced /ˈtʃɑːntɪˌklɪə/.
Why “chanticleer” is a great word
CHANTICLEER — [Noun] A domestic rooster, especially one personified in fables and fairy tales. From the Middle English proper name Chauntecleer, from Old French Chantecler (modern French Chanteclair), the name of the cock in the Reynard the Fox cycle, from chanter ("to sing, to crow") + cler ("clear, clearly"). Attested in English since c. 1300. Unlike "rooster," a general, prosaic term, or "cock," a bluntly common one, "chanticleer" is an archaic, literary name that confers a narrative life. He is the strutting monarch of the midden, his crimson comb a crown; he is the vain fool, tricked by the fox's flattery into closing his eyes; he is the ancient, clarion herald whose cry cleaves the dawn's first grey—a creature so transformed by story that the name evokes not merely a bird, but the resonant, foolish clarity of an old anthropomorphized world.
noun
- A domestic rooster or cock, especially in fables and fairy tales.“When I did hear / The motley fool, thus moral on the time, / My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, / That fools should be so deep-contemplative[…].”
verb
- To make the crowing sound of a cock.
- To crow in exultation.