pillicockn.

Etymology: Apparently < a first element of uncertain origin (see note below) + cock n.¹; in β. forms apparently with a parasitic connecting vowel. Compare in the same sense Danish regional (Jutland) pillerkok and also German regional (Low German: Bremen) pillhaan (with the second element compare German Hahn cockerel, also penis: see hen n.¹). Compare pillock n.¹With the first element compare English regional (northern) and Scots pill penis (first attested in the early 18th cent.), probably the reflex of a borrowing < early Scandinavian (compare Norwegian regional pill , Danish regional pil (c1700), both in the same sense; compare also Danish regional (Jutland) piller ), further etymology uncertain. Compare also the following diminutive forms: Older Scots pillie , Older Scots pilda , Scots and Irish English (northern) piltie , all in the same sense. With the apparently tautological formation of the compound compare fidcock n. It has alternatively been suggested that the word is an alteration of pillock n.¹ (although this is first attested later) with suffix substitution (-cock , hypocoristic suffix: see discussion at cock n.¹; probably later reanalysed as the latter), and that the first element ultimately reflects a shortened form of pile n.¹ (in an unattested transferred sense ‘penis’). See P. McClure in Nomina 28 (2005) 15–17. Apparently attested earlier as a surname: Johanne Pilecoc (1199), Pylecok (c1275), Giliana Pylcock' (1301).