cook

• IPA^(key): /kʊk/
• (UK dialectal, obsolete elsewhere) IPA^(key): /kuk/[1]

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -ʊk

From Middle English cook, from Old English cōc (“a cook”), from Latin coquus (“cook”), from coquō, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- (“to cook, become ripe”).

Cognate with Low German kokk (“cook”), Dutch kok (“cook”), German Koch (“cook”), Danish kok (“cook”), Norwegian kokk (“cook”), Swedish kock (“cook”), Icelandic kokkur (“cook”), Spanish cocer.

cook (plural cooks)

1. (cooking) A person who prepares food for a living.
2. (cooking) The head cook of a manor house
3. (slang) One who manufactures certain illegal drugs, especially meth.

   Police found two meth cooks working in the illicit lab.

   • 2008, Mel Bradshaw, Victim Impact

     By late October, the pressure on the Dark Arrows' ecstasy cook had eased. Other suppliers had moved in with product.

   • 2011, Mackenzie Phillips, High on Arrival

     Owsley Stanley was a pioneer LSD cook, and the Purple Owsley pill from his now-defunct lab was Dad's prized possession, a rare, potent, druggie collector's item, the alleged inspiration for the Hendrix song “Purple Haze.”

4. (slang) A session of manufacturing certain illegal drugs, especially meth.
   • 2011, Neal Hall, Hell To Pay: Hells Angels vs. The Million-Dollar Rat (page 36)

     Punko told Plante he wanted to use a full barrel for the next cook.

5. A fish, the European striped wrasse, Labrus mixtus.

• (food preparation for a living): chef

• (food preparation for a living): cordon bleu

(food preparation for a living):

• sous-chef
• line cook
• prep cook
• chef
• cookess, cookeress (female cook)

(head cook of a manor house):

• scullery maid
• kitchen maid

• → Norman: couque
• → Thai: กุ๊ก (gúk)

From Middle English coken, from the noun cook.

cook (third-person singular simple present cooks, present participle cooking, simple past and past participle cooked)

1. (transitive) To prepare (food) for eating by heating it, often by combining it with other ingredients.

   I'm cooking bangers and mash.

2. (intransitive) To prepare (unspecified) food for eating by heating it, often by combining it with other ingredients.

   He's in the kitchen, cooking.

3. (intransitive) To be being cooked.

   The dinner is cooking on the stove.

4. (intransitive, figuratively) To be uncomfortably hot.

   Look at that poor dog shut up in that car on a day like today - it must be cooking in there.

5. (slang) To execute by electric chair.
6. (transitive, slang) To hold onto (a grenade) briefly after igniting the fuse, so that it explodes almost immediately after being thrown.

   I always cook my frags, in case they try to grab one and throw it back.

7. To concoct or prepare.
   • 2006, Frank Spalding, Methamphetamine: The Dangers of Crystal Meth (page 47)

     The process of cooking meth can leave residue on surfaces all over the home, exposing all of its occupants to the drug.

8. To tamper with or alter; to cook up.
   • 1880, Joseph Addison; Richard John Green, “The newspaper”, in Essays of Joseph Addison, London: Roger de Coverly Club, page 154:

     They all of them receive the same advices from abroad, and very often in the same words; but their way of cooking it is so different, that there is no citizen, who has an eye to the public good, who can leave the coffee-house with peace of mind...

9. (intransitive, jazz, slang) To play or improvise in an inspired and rhythmically exciting way. (From 1930s jive talk.)

   Watch this band: they cook!

   Crank up the Coltrane and start cooking!

   • 1957, Miles Davis quoted by Ira Gitler, liner notes to Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, Prestige LP 7094:

     This album is called Cookin’ at Miles’ request. He said, “After all, that’s what we did – came in and cooked.”

10. (intransitive, idiomatic, music, slang) To play music vigorously.

    On the Wagner piece, the orchestra was cooking!

    • 2012, Los Angeles Times, "Review: Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra won't stand still":

      The tempos were swift. The orchestra cooked, reading [conductor] Kahane's mind and swinging with him as one.

• (to be uncomfortably hot): bake, stew
• (hold on to a grenade): cook off

• (to prepare or plan something): concoct, contrive, devise, make up, plan, prepare

• Troponyms: bake, barbecue, boil, braise, fry, grill, microwave, poach, roast, scramble, steam, stew
• See also Thesaurus:cook

Imitative.

cook (third-person singular simple present cooks, present participle cooking, simple past and past participle cooked)

1. (obsolete, rare, intransitive) To make the noise of the cuckoo.
   • 1599, Thomas Moffet, The Silkwormes, and their Flies, London: V.S. for Nicholas Ling, OCLC 428112023:

     Constant cuckoos cook on every side.

Unknown; possibly related to chuck.

cook (third-person singular simple present cooks, present participle cooking, simple past and past participle cooked)

1. (Britain, dialectal, obsolete) To throw.
   • 1787, Francis Grose, A Provincial Glossary: With a Collection of Local Proverbs, and Popular Superstitions, London: Printed for S. Hooper, OCLC 938433091, page 37:

     Cook. To throw. Cook me that ball, throw me that ball. Glou.

• cok, coke, koke, cuyke, cuke, cooke

From Old English cōc, from Vulgar Latin cocus, from Latin coquus.

• IPA^(key): /koːk/, /kuːk/

cook (plural cookes)

1. cook, chef, restauranteur
2. (figuratively) nourisher, nourishment

• Scots: cuke, cuik
• English: cook
  • → Norman: couque
  • → Thai: กุ๊ก (gúk)

• “cọ̄k (n.(6))” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-03.

cook

1. To appear and disappear by turns.