I. ˈku̇k noun
( -s )
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English cooke, coke, from Old English cōc; akin to Old High German koch, Old Saxon kok; all from a prehistoric West Germanic word borrowed from Latin cocus, coquus, from coquere to cook; akin to Old English āfigen fried, Greek pessein to cook, digest, Welsh pobi to bake, Serbian peći, Lithuanian kepti, Sanskrit pacati he cooks
1.
a. : one who prepares food for the table (as in a private home, public eating place, or institution)
b. : one who prepares a particular kind of food
a pastry cook
2.
a. : one who cooks meats, fruits, fish, vegetables, or other foods for commercial canning
b. : a packing-house worker who cooks meats to prepare them for smoking, molding, or packing
3.
a. : an often technical or industrial process comparable to cooking food
a 20-minute cook
specifically : the cooking of cellulosic raw materials in papermaking
b. : substance or material so treated : a product thus obtained
c. : one who conducts such a cook
4.
a. : a previously unrecognized or unrecorded series of moves in a chess or checkers game prepared as a surprise for an opponent especially in tournament play
b. : a solution to a chess or checkers problem unforeseen by the composer
II. verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: Middle English coken, from coke, n.
intransitive verb
1. : to do the work of a cook : prepare food for the table by a heating process
2.
a. : to undergo the action of being cooked
the rice is cooking now
b. : to suffer through the effects of noticeable or great heat
cooking in the heat of the city
3. : develop , occur , happen
find out what was cooking in the committee
transitive verb
1. : to make up : fabricate often factitiously as an expendient : concoct , improvise — usually used with up
if she hadn't any problems, I said, she could cook up some — J.B.Benefield
we cooked up a scheme to buy some desert land — W.A.White
2. : to prepare for eating by a heating process (as boiling, roasting, or baking)
3. : to alter to convey an untrue impression : falsify , doctor , angle , manipulate
an old hand at company manipulation, he prepares to cook the books — Punch
4.
a. : to bring decisively to a bad end : undo , ruin , kill
my chances were cooked by this decision
b. Britain : to wear out : exhaust , fatigue
too cooked to leave camp again — J.H.Williams
5.
a. : to expose to fire, heat, or some agency felt to be similar in a technical process
a coke brazier was cooking rivets — George Farwell
cooking TNT — Stanley Frank
b. : to make radioactive
put into a nuclear reactor and cooked
6. : to enervate, make suffer, or parch with excessive heat
the sun cooking the dry plains
•
- cook one's goose
- cook with gas
III. intransitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: perhaps of Scandinavian origin; akin to Icelandic kūka to defecate, Swedish & Norwegian dialect kukka to defecate, Shetland Norse kuk dried excrement; perhaps akin to German kauchen to crouch
Scotland : to crouch down in hiding : take cover
IV. intransitive verb
Etymology: cook (II)
1. : to play music extremely well and entertainingly ; specifically : swing 4b
2. : to go or do well : proceed successfully
the party is cooking