cockshy
/ˈkɒkʃʌɪ
/noun (plural cockshies) British dated
1A target for throwing sticks or stones at as a game.The senator set up a number of cockshies and knocked them down again....
- ‘We will make a cockshy of you if you don't look out,’ said one; and another actually threw a stone at him.
- The gypsies hold a kind of informal fair on the village green with cockshies, swings, and all the clumsy games that extract money from clumsy hands.
1.1An act of throwing something at a cockshy.
1.2An object of ridicule or criticism.By way of providing a cockshy for the first meeting of the strategic planning group, the vision sketched out below has been prepared....
- He has written, in his own words, a ‘cockshy’ of a book, cockshy being an old British word with the meaning here of writing ‘something to shoot at.’
Origin
From the original use of a replica of a cockerel as a target.