haycock

From Middle English haycoke; equivalent to hay +‎ cock (“conical heap”).

haycock (plural haycocks)

1. A small, conical stack of hay left in a field to dry before adding to a haystack.
   • [1589?], Cutbert Curry-knaue [pseudonym; Thomas Nashe], “To that Most Comicall and Conceited Caualeire Monsieur du Kempe, Iestmonger and Vice-gerent generall to the Ghost of Dicke Tarlton. His Louing Brother Cutbert Curry-knaue Sendeth Greeting.”, in An Almond for a Parrat, or Cutbert Curry-knaues Almes. […], [London]: […] [Eliot’s Court Press], →OCLC, signature A2, recto:

     Brother Kempe, as many alhailes to thy perſon as there be haicocks in Iuly at Pancredge: […]

   • [c. 1788–1789], [Jane Austen], “Henry and Eliza: a novel”, in Volume the First, page 87:

     [T]hey perceived lying closely concealed beneath the thick foliage of a Haycock, a beautifull little Girl not more than 3 months old.

   • 1917, Edward Thomas, “Adlestrop”, in Poems, London: Selwyn & Blount, page 40:

     And willows, willow-herb, and grass, / And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, / No whit less still and lonely fair / Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

• “haycock”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.