Cocktail \Cock"tail`\, n.

1. A beverage made of brandy, whisky, or gin, iced, flavored, and sweetened. [U. S.]

2. (Stock Breeding) A horse, not of pure breed, but having only one eighth or one sixteenth impure blood in his veins. --Darwin.

3. A mean, half-hearted fellow; a coward. [Slang, Eng.]

It was in the second affair that poor little Barney showed he was a cocktail. --Thackeray.

4. (Zo["o]l.) A species of rove beetle; -- so called from its habit of elevating the tail.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)