Note 320 — KING SHAH BAKHT AND HIS WAZIR AL-RAHWAN.[295]
Richard Francis Burton translation · Edition 2
This word, which undoubtedly derives from cuculus, cogul, cocu, a cuckoo, has taken a queer twist, nor can I explain how its present meaning arose from a she-bird which lays her egg in a strange nest. Wittol, on the other hand, from Witan to know, is rightly applied to one whom La Fontaine calls “cocu et content,” the Arab. Dayyús.