cocking

verb

present participle of cock
as in tilting
to set or cause to be at an angle cocked his head to the side as he listened to her quizzically

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for cocking
  1. tilting
  2. sloping
  3. leaning
  4. angling
Verb
  • Celebrity CEOs in the feed What’s changed over the past few years is that the format of executive communications is tilting toward social‑native content.
    — Rachel Ventresca, Fortune, 5 July 2026
  • Since summer’s first day on June 21, the days have been growing shorter as the Northern Hemisphere slowly starts tilting toward autumn.
    — Charles Seabrook, AJC.com, 4 July 2026
Definition of tilting
Verb
  • The sloping roofs achieve this in a way that benefits both residents in their apartments and visitors in the streets.
    — Bridget Borgobello July 04, New Atlas, 4 July 2026
  • The intention is for native plants and wildlife to remain undisturbed in the sloping steeps.
    — Lara Johnson-Wheeler, Vogue, 3 July 2026
Definition of sloping
Verb
  • Rusak had spent months showing Ngo flat, organic-leaning designs before something shifted.
    — Jessica Salter, CNN Money, 7 July 2026
  • Lawyers with the left-leaning Public Citizen Litigation Group argue the administration began sharing information about the applications with Iran in March 2025.
    — Ximena Bustillo, NPR, 7 July 2026
Definition of leaning
Verb
  • Johnson had been angling for such a resolution since the last weeks of 1963 and had begun discussing it in earnest the following February.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 1 July 2026
  • David Zaslav announced plans to split up WBD in June, and a few months later, Paramount and Netflix were angling to take over the whole company.
    — Josef Adalian, Vulture, 1 July 2026
Definition of angling
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

cockiness
cocking
cocking a snook (at)
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Cocking.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cocking. Accessed 11 Jul. 2026.

Copy Citation

More from Merriam-Webster on cocking

Nglish: Translation of cocking for Spanish Speakers

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of xeric

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?

Commonly Misspelled Words

How to Use Em Dashes (—), En Dashes (–) , and Hyphens (-)
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List

One-Word Oxymorons: Bittersweet, Spendthrift, and More

Ten Words Ending with a Silent ‘T’

The Words of the Week - Jul 10
See More

Popular

See More

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
banana-mirrored
Contradictory Words Quiz Pick out which word means one thing…and the opp...
See All