cockle

Etymology 1

From Middle English cokel, cokkel, kokkel, cocle, of uncertain origin. Perhaps a diminutive of Middle English cokke, cok (“cockle”), from Old English cocc (found in sǣcocc (“cockle”)) + -le; or perhaps from Old French coquille, from Vulgar Latin *cocchilia, from conchylia, from Ancient Greek κογχύλιον (konkhúlion), diminutive of κογχύλη (konkhúlē, “mussel”), of Pre-Greek substrate origin.

noun

1. Any of various edible European bivalve mollusks, of the family Cardiidae, having heart-shaped shells.
   His wife, a small woman who walked always on high heels, borrowed Gerhardie's primus stove several times a day to cook her husband gargantuan meals of cockles, mussels, snails, and other such unpalatables. 1990, Dido Davies, Andrew Davies, William Gerhardie: A Biography, page 164
2. The shell of such a mollusk.
3. (in the plural) One’s innermost feelings (only in the expression “the cockles of one’s heart”).
4. (directly from French coquille) A wrinkle, pucker
5. (by extension) A defect in sheepskin; firm dark nodules caused by the bites of keds on live sheep
6. (mining, UK, Cornwall) The mineral black tourmaline or schorl.
7. (UK) The fire chamber of a furnace.
8. (UK) A kiln for drying hops; an oast.
9. (UK) The dome of a heating furnace.

verb

1. To cause to contract into wrinkles or ridges, as some kinds of cloth after a wetting; to pucker.

Etymology 2

Wikispecies Wikispecies From Middle English cockil, cokil, cokylle, from Old English coccel (“darnel”), of unknown origin, perhaps from a diminutive of Latin coccus (“berry”).

noun

1. Any of several field weeds, such as the common corncockle (Agrostemma githago) and darnel ryegrass (Lolium temulentum).
   But cockle, spurge, according to their law / Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, / You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove. 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section X

Etymology 3

Origin uncertain.

verb

1. (Scotland, Northern England, Midlands) To wobble, shake; to be unsteady.
   Israel Wilde arrived last, his ankle swollen and already berry-blue after cockling at the top of Hatherself Scout. 2017, Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury, published 2019, page 32

Etymology 4

Rhyming slang, from cock and hen for ten.

noun

1. (Cockney rhyming slang) A £10 note; a tenner.