weathercock

noun

"weathercock" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“weathercock” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
11
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A weather vane, sometimes in the form of a cockerel.

Corpus desk

Index EN-weathercock · weathercock · English

weathercock · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 11 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "W" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for weathercock
PropertyValue
Headwordweathercock
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters11
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “weathercock” in English

weathercockranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

weathercock is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for weathercock, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English wetharcoke, weþercok, wedercoc, wederkok, equivalent to weather + cock. The correct English form is weathercock, spelled W-E-A-T-H-E-R-C-O-C-K.

Definition

  1. 1
    A weather vane, sometimes in the form of a cockerel.
  2. 2
    One who veers with every change of current opinion; a fickle, inconstant person.
  3. 3
    A kind of wind pump whose top behaves like a weather vane, moving with the wind direction, but which also has a wheel attached to measure wind speed.

Etymology

From Middle English wetharcoke, weþercok, wedercoc, wederkok, equivalent to weather + cock.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "weathercock"?
"weathercock" is spelled W-E-A-T-H-E-R-C-O-C-K.
What does "weathercock" mean?
As a noun, "weathercock" means: A weather vane, sometimes in the form of a cockerel.
What is the origin of the word "weathercock"?
From Middle English wetharcoke, weþercok, wedercoc, wederkok, equivalent to weather + cock. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list