Cock a doodle do! My dame has lost her shoe, My master's lost his fiddlestick, And knows not what to do Etymology Onomatopoetic. Noun cock-a-doodle-doo ( plural cock-a-doodle-doos ) The cry of the rooster. Interjection cock-a-doodle-doo The cry of the rooster. Wiktionary The first two lines were used in a murder pamphlet in England, 1606, which seems to suggest that children sang those lines, or very similar ones, to mock cockerels (roosters in US) "crow". The first full version recorded was in Mother Goose's Melody , published in London around 1765. Wikipedia (Background for the story " London Bridge is Falling Down ")