Also 4 coke. [f. COOK sb. Cf. OHG. kochôn, chochen, MHG. and mod.G. kochen, MLG. kōken, Du. koken, Da. koge, which are however only parallel forms.]
1. intr. To act as cook, to prepare food by the action of heat (for a household, etc.). (Now regarded as the absol. use of 2.)
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 150. Þei [prestis] schulden travel night and day to coke for mennis gostly fode.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. XVI. 60. Thenne cam contrition þat hadde coked for hem alle.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville, II. 150. They did not venture to make a fire and cook, it is true.
1881. Queen’s Regul. for Army, XVII. ¶ 86. The most competent man is to be selected to cook for the whole of the troops on board.
2. trans. To prepare or make ready (food); to make fit for eating by due application of heat, as by boiling, baking, roasting, broiling, etc.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., III. vi. 39. There is cold meat i’th’ Caue, we’l brouz on that Whil’st what we haue kill’d, be Cook’d. Ibid. (1611), Cymb., V. iv. 156. Hanging is the word, Sir, if you bee readie for that, you are well Cook’d.
1653. Walton, Angler, 52. I will tel you … how to cook him.
1779–80. Cook, Voy., I. I. xvii. (R.). Bread-fruit is sometimes cooked in an oven of the same kind.
1819. Shelley, Cyclops, 193. Well, is the dinner fitly cooked and laid?
1841. Lane, Arab. Nts., I. 102. Cook the fish thyself here before me.
Mod. (title) A hundred ways of cooking potatoes.
b. with up (implying manipulation).
1680. Sir T. Browne, Wks. (1852), III. 468. I know no other animal wherein the rectum is cooked up.
c. intr. (for refl.) Of food: To undergo cooking, to be cooked.
In the construction ‘to be cooking,’ ‘cooking’ is historically the vbl. sb. (to be a-cooking, i.e., in process of cooking); but this runs together with ‘to cook,’ = ‘cook itself’ or ‘be cooked’; = F. se cuire. Cf. similar construction of bake, boil, cut, eat, taste, etc.
1857. S. Osborn, Quedah, xx. 274. Whilst the rice was cooking, I thought I might as well run up and see the town.
1891. Leisure Hour, Dec., 144/1. Stew, stirring well, till the pulp cooks to a marmalade.
Mod. These pears do not cook well: they are not good cookers.
3. fig. Also with up (esp. in a and b, rare in c).
1588. T. L., To Ch. Rome (1651), 19. How may he cook or spice his Commandements, to have them approved of your mouths?
1710. Palmer, Proverbs, 188–9. When the Countenance is thus cook’d up, and set in form, out comes two or three If you’ll give me Leave’s.
1739. Sheridan, trans. Persius, iii. 51. He is cooked up in all the State and Formalities of a dead Person.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxvii. 194. I got that job cookit.
1859. M. Napier, Mem. Claverhouse, I. II. 353. Lauderdale … was cooked into such a loyalist … by eleven years of durance in the Tower.
b. To ‘get up,’ concoct.
1624. Quarles, Div. Poems, Job (1717), 155. The toiling Swain, that hath with pleasing trouble Cookt a small Fortune.
1751. Chesterf., Lett., III. ccxlvii. 133. We cooked up a bill for that purpose.
1795. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Lousiad, II. I’ve cooked up a Petition.
1817. Cobbett’s Weekly Pol. Reg., XXXII. 84. The sons of Corruption, unable to say that people are in ease and happiness, cook up a doctrine of fatality. They say, it is the fate of nations, when they become refined, to become miserable.
1889. Grant Allen, Tents of Shem, I. 145. To inspect the sketch he was busily cooking.
c. To present in a surreptitiously altered form, for some purpose; to manipulate, ‘doctor,’ falsify, tamper with. colloq.
1636. Earl Strafforde, Lett. & Disp. (1739), II. 16. Without Question the Proof was once clear, however they have cook’d it since.
1751. Smollett, Per. Pic., xcviii. Some falsified printed accounts, artfully cooked up, on purpose to mislead and deceive.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. ix. § 2. These accounts, even if cooked, still exercise some check.
1872. J. A. H. Murray, Complaynt of Scotl., Introd. cxvii. The editor was attacked by no less an authority than Pinkerton, for not printing the text ‘as a classic,’ i. e. cooking the spelling, &c., as he himself would have done.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. xx. 410. Occasionally the sealers may have quietly ‘cooked’ the return.
4. To ruin, spoil, ‘do for.’ slang.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour (1861), III. 360 (Farmer). When … the cabs that carry four come in, they cooked the hackney-coachmen in no time.
1889. Field, 14 Dec., 854. [Chess] If there are two key-moves, a problem is cooked.
b. To cook any one’s goose: to ‘do for’ a person or thing; to ruin or kill. slang. See GOOSE.
1841. The Era, 9 Nov., 11/4. The snobites were anxious to invest their awl (all), being confident that the tailor would be well basted, and have his goose cooked in the coming event.
a. 1851. Street Ballad, in Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 243 (Hoppe). If they come here we’ll cook their goose, The Pope and Cardinal Wiseman.
1860. Trollope, Framley P., xlii. Chaldicotes, Gagebee, is a cooked goose, as far as Sowerby is concerned.
1863. Reade, Hard Cash, xiv. If you worry or excite your brain … you will cook your own goose—by a quick fire.
1868. Yates, Rock Ahead, III. v. It … will be quite enough to cook your goose as it is.
