Many Russian words with obscure and semi-intelligible meanings migrated from Old Slavonic to the modern language. One of these ghost words is kochet. This word is often found in Slavic families, but practically does not occur separately.
Meaning of the word “Kochet”
You can search it in the explanatory dictionaries of Dahl and Ozhegov. The main meaning of this word is a rooster, a male chicken. So in the old days they called the leader of the chicken tribe. In the old days, chickens were a delicacy, and possession of these poultry could be a hallmark of one or another owner.
In the vocabulary of hunters, it’s a calf - this is also the main male in a flock of birds that were hunted. Since males in nature have the most beautiful plumage, hunters often decorated their hats with feathers of wild birds.
Old proverbs
The rooster in the chicken family was the master and lord. He had a lot of diminutive names. We have reached the "coconut", "coconut", "kochetok" and, possibly, "cocot". So the word "Kochet" smoothly passed from the bird's designation into human relations. In an old Russian family, it’s a killer - it’s the husband, the owner, and sometimes just a person. This interpretation is also confirmed by ancient proverbs, for example: "Every coconut wants to crow", "Important as a little dog." The characteristics of a cockerel, its pugnaciousness, arrogance, the ability to sing and stand out among others, were also transferred to many areas of human life, for example, the character and luck of a person: “A peaceful dog and a little dog will beat”, “Whoever gets carried, the cock will blow”, "Every rooster in his yard is a master." The rooster’s ability to sing at dawn was also noted: “Until the third cockerel sings, the day does not come”, “Each rooster knows its hour,” “Pop and don’t sing a song” and many others.
Portable values
As is often accepted in proverbs, the meaning of the word “kochet” is allegorical. Ancient riddles and proverbs highlighted the main qualities of the kochet and transferred them to other objects and phenomena.
"Everyone wants to bark." Kochet in this riddle is a shotgun. “The red kochet runs along the perch” - the kochet is already a lit torch, fire in general. In ancient dictionaries, we find also secondary meanings of the word “kochet”. This is a children's game, such as burners, and pegs mounted on board the boat. This word was also called a windmill - a weather vane with the image of a perky bird.
The popularity of this bird gradually introduced itself into many Russian surnames, at the root of which the word "Kochet" is found. This and Kochetkov, and Kochetov, and Kokotov, and Kokoshilov.
So the word, having survived centuries and having forgotten its original meaning, returns to us as our own surnames.