COCK A SNOOK

This phrase means to regard someone or something with disrespect. It was primarily heard in the UK. For example: She cocked a snook at her teachers by going to school with her hair dyed purple.

Literally, if you cock a snook, you place your hand so that your thumb touches your nose and your fingers are spread out, in order to express contempt. The general understanding of what’s meant by ‘cock a snook’ is the spread hand with thumb on the nose, preferably with crossed eyes, wagging fingers and any other annoying gesticulation that comes to mind at the time. It’s what the Americans call ‘the fivefingered salute’.

Recorded from the late 18th century, this expression’s origins are uncertain—as are those of the gesture itself, which occurs under a variety of names in many countries.

Cock here is a verb with the sense of sticking something out stiffly in an attitude of defiance, as the cockerel’s neck, crest or tail is erect when he crows. So we have expressions like to cock the nose, to turn one’s nose up in contempt or indifference. A cocked hat is one whose brim has been turned up; a cocked gun is one whose hammer has been raised, ready for firing. And so on.

But snook is not so easily explainable, since the word turns up only in this phrase. There’s an example known from 1791.

“They cock snooks at one on every occasion.” There is some suggestion that it is a variant form of snout, which would make sense.

The next time we see it is in Augustus Hare’s The story of my life, 1879: “If I put my hands so ... (cutting a snooks), they might reproach me very much indeed.”

This provides a little more clarity.