"COCKNEY, n. [Most probably from L. coquina, a kitchin, or coquino, to cook; Fr. coquin, idle; Fr. cocagne, It. cuccagna, an imaginary country of idleness and luxury.... Hence, a citizen who leads an idle life, or never leaves the city.]
"1. A native of London, by way of contempt. Watts. Shak.
"'And yet I say by my soul I have no salt bacon
Ne no cokeney by Christe coloppes to make.'
"'At that feast were they served in rich array;
Every five and five had a cokeney.'"
Chaucer, in the above lines quoted by Webster, probably refers to any substantial dish of fresh meat, which might be cut in collops; possibly, however, to young roasted pigs, which, as every one knows, are continually running about, all over the land of cockaigne, with knives and forks stuck into them, crying, "Come eat me, come eat me."
Whether the word cockney be derived from the the land of cockaigne, or the legend of cockaigne arise from cockney, it appears probable that both words have their origin in the same root with the verb to cook, and that the epithet originally conveyed the imputation to citizens, of a superfluous consumption of cooked meat; inasmuch as the inhabitants of large cities generally consider the daily use of fresh meat almost as a necessary of life, while the provincial population is content to exist on less nutritious food.
Whatever may be the original import of the epithet, the modern application of it is, I believe, confined to the natives of the metropolis, and it corresponds in use and signification with the terms rustic and chaw-bacon, which distinguish the natives of the provinces; the latter term being exclusively appropriated to agriculturalists. Epithets, apparently of similar origin, exist in the seaman's land-lubber, the landsman's jack-tar, the Englishman's froggy, and the Frenchman's ros-bif.
Londoners themselves appear to have a theoretical notion that the inhabitants of Belgravia, and other enlightened metropolitan districts, are strictly entitled to the designation cockney, in virtue of their birth and residence within the sound of Bow-bells; but practically limit its application to those members of the lower, and more ignorant classes of the community, who traditionally retain some of the obsolete idioms, and other peculiarities of speech, of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.