cockney [LME] A cockney was originally a pampered or spoilt child. This use may derive from a similar word, cokeney ‘a cock’s egg’, which, since cocks do not lay eggs, actually meant a poor specimen of a hen’s egg, a small and misshapen one. The ‘pampered child’ meaning developed into an insulting term for someone who lives in the town [M16th], regarded as effeminate and weak, in contrast to hardier country dwellers. By the end of the 16th century the word was being applied to someone from the East End of London, traditionally someone born within the sound of Bow Bells (the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church in the City of London).