rooster

noun8

1. •
   (US, Australia) A male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) or other gallinaceous bird.

   • Their other dish […] contain'd a number of roast fowls—half a dozen, we suppose, & all roosters at this season no doubt. — 1772
2. •
   (figurative) A powerful, prideful, or pompous person.
3. •
   (New-Zealand, figurative) A man.
4. •
   A bird or bat which roosts or is roosting.

   • The more leisured flight of the roosters [sc. starlings] was in contrast to the steady procession of the migrants. — 1949
5. •
   (US, historical) A wild violet, when used in a children's game based on cockfighting.

   • In April they played Hens and Roosters, yoking their wild white and blue violets to see which would get its head pulled off. — 1946
6. •
   (figurative, no longer used) A violent or disorderly person.
7. •
   (figurative, no longer used) An informer.
8. •
   (slang, no longer used) Legislation solely devised to benefit the legislators proposing it.

   • American demoralisation... has carried rooster into the halls of republican legislation, where it indicates a bill or proposed law which will remunerate the legislators. — 1869