From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishweathercockweath‧er‧cock /ˈweðəkɒk $ -ərkɑːk/ noun [countable] DHWEATHERa weather vane in the shape of a male chicken
Examples from the Corpus
weathercock• On the exterior is an octagonal spire, called the Torre de Gallo, after its weathercock.• Carol looked up at the weathercock as the car drew up at her house in the cobbled square.• Sharpe looked up at the weathercock on the stable roof and saw the wind had backed southerly.• In a wind, however, the model will only turn until the trim offset is balanced by the weathercock effect.• The bunch pulled out by the weathercock had left the rest of the twigs loose in their binding.• It had been going more and more slowly since diving down from the weathercock.• These are designed, rather on the principle of the weathercock, to orientate themselves to the instantaneous local air movement.• We have already seen that the weathercock effect due to forward flight makes the tail rotor too effective. 