Definition of "cockney"

A cockney in a rural village was stared at as much as if he had entered a kraal of Hottentots.

1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 3, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans

A young heir, or cockney, that is his mother's darling […]

1592, Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless

This great lubber, the world, will prove a cockney.

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]