cockloft

• cock loft
• cockleloft

From cock +‎ loft.

cockloft (plural cocklofts)

1. A small attic or garret.
   • 1693, John Dryden, “The Third Satire of Juvenal”, in The Satirs of Decimus Juvenalis:

     For if the lowest floors already burn, / Cocklofts and garrets soon will take the turn.

   • 1716, Alexander Pope, A Further Account of the Most Deplorable Condition of Mr. Edmund Curll, Bookseller:

     All theſe gentlemen appeared at the hour appointed in Mr. Curll's dining-room, two excepted; one of whom was the gentleman in the cockloft, his landlady being out of the way, and the gradus ad parnaſſum taken down; the other happened to be too cloſely watched by the bailiffs.

2. A horizontal void between a building's uppermost ceiling and its roof, with no habitable or accessible space.

   Fires often spread through cocklofts.