[Cf. Sp. corcha, corche in same sense; but 15th c. corke, with 16th c. Du. kork, kurk, Ger. kork, appears to represent OSp. alcorque ‘a corke shooe, a pantofle’ (Minsheu), in which sense corke is cited in 1463 (sense 2); cf. also Ger. korke slipper (1595 in Grimm), and the earliest High G. name for cork, pantoffel- or pantofflenholz slipper-wood.
The Sp. corche represents (directly or indirectly) L. corticem bark (in which sense Sp. now uses corteza:—L. corticea). Alcorque, known in Sp. of date 1458, was immediately from Sp. Arabic (Covarrubias 1611 has ‘dicho en Arabigo corque’); but its origin is uncertain; Dozy thinks it represents L. quercus. If this be so, then corque, and by implication cork, has no connection with Sp. corcha, corche, or L. cortex.]
I. 1. The ‘bark’ or periderm of the cork-oak, which grows to a thickness of one or two inches, is very light, tough, and elastic, and is commonly used for a variety of purposes.
Virgin cork: the outer casing of the bark formed during the first year’s growth, which afterwards dries, splits, and peels off naturally in flakes. Spons, Encycl., II. (1880), 723.
[c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 93. Corktre, suberies. Corkbarke, cortex.
1483. Cath. Angl., 76. Corke. [No Latin.]]
1570. Levins, Manip., 171. Corke, suber.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XVI. viii. 461 (R.). Concerning corke, the woodie substance of the tree is very small…. The barke onely serveth for many purposes.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 14 July. Four or five tons of corke to send … to the fleet, being a new device to make barricados with.
1840. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Execution. Blacking his nose with a piece of burnt cork.
1869. Oliver, Elem. Bot., II. 239. Cork is the outer bark, removed from the tree at intervals of from six to ten years.
2. Applied to various things made of cork.
† a. A sandal or slipper made of cork; a cork sole or heel for a shoe. Obs.
1463–4. Act 2–3 Edw. IV., c. 4. Botes, shoen, galoches or corkes.
1473. in Ld. Treas. Acc. Scotl., I. 29. To pay for patynis and corkis.
1530. Palsgr., 169. Liege, a corke for a slyppar [cf. 209].
1609. Heywood, Rape Lucrece, Wks. 1874, V. 211. They weare so much Corke under their heeles they cannot choose but love to caper.
1624. Davenport, City Nt.-cap., II. She must have a Feather in her head and a cork in her heel.
a. 1800. Ballad ‘The Queen’s Marie,’ xvii. (Minstr. Sc. Border). The corks frae her heels did flee.
b. A piece of cork used as a float for a fishing net or line, or to support a swimmer in the water.
1496. Bk. St. Albans, Fishing, 17. Make your flotys in this wyse. Take a fayr corke [etc.].
1555. Eden, Decades, 195. As light as a corke.
1617. Hieron, Wks., II. 79. Whoso thinks to swimme well enough without this ministeriall corke.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., IV. vi. (1675), 197. Whilst we continu’d angling … we often cast our Eyes … upon each others fishing Corks.
1840. Clough, Early Poems, i. 31. The corks the novice plies to-day The swimmer soon shall cast away.
3. esp. A piece of cork, cut into a cylindrical or tapering form, used as a stopper for a bottle, cask, etc.; also transf. a similar stopper made of some other substance.
1530. Palsgr., 737. Stoppe the bottell with a corke.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., III. iii. 95. As you’ld thrust a Corke into a hogshead.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., Proem 12. That hole was stopt with a Cork.
1797. Holcroft, Stolberg’s Trav. (ed. 2), III. lxxx. 229. Corks for bottles are made from the bark … and likewise cork soles.
1869. E. A. Parkes, Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3), 27. Bottles, with glass stoppers and not with corks.
1870. G. Macdonald, At Back of North Wind i. (1882), 4. He jumped out of bed again, got a little strike of hay, twisted it up, folded it in the middle, and having thus made it into a cork, stuck it into the hole in the wall.
4. The cork-tree or cork-oak (Quercus Suber), a species of oak found in the countries on the Mediterranean and grown for the production of cork.
1601. Chester, Love’s Mart., lxiii. (1878), 95. The Hollyhalme, the Corke.
1814. Southey, Roderick, XI. The vine … clinging round the cork And ilex, hangs amid their dusky leaves.
5. Bot. A peculiar tissue in the higher plants, forming the inner division of the bark (which name is sometimes restricted to the dead tissues lying outside the cork); it consists of closely packed air-containing cells, nearly impervious to air and water, and protects the underlying tissues.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., I. ii. § 15. 80. The formation of cork is very frequently continuous … when this occurs uniformly over the whole circumference, there arises a stratified cork-envelope, the Periderm, replacing the epidermis, which is in the meantime generally destroyed.
1878. McNab, Bot., ii. (1883), 39. All tissues external to the layers of cork, die and dry up, forming a strong … protecting tissue, the bark.
II. transf.
† 6. Used by Grew for the ‘head’ or torus of some fruits, as apples, pears, gooseberries, bearing the withered remains of the floral leaves. Obs.
1671. Grew, Anat. Plants, I. vi. § 2. Ten [branches] are spred … through the Parenchyma [of the apple], most of them enarching themselves towards the Cork or Stool of the Flower. Ibid. (1677), Anat. Fruits, II. § 9. (Pears) A straight chanel or Ductus, which opens at the midle of the Cork or Stool of the Flower. Ibid., § 10. (Quince) The coar stands higher or nearer to the Cork … and the Ductus from the bottom of the Coar to the top of the Fruit, much more open and observable.
7. Fossil cork, mountain-cork, rock-cork: names for a very light variety of asbestos.
1865. Page, Handbk. Geol. Terms, 389. Rock-Cork, a variety of asbestus whose fine fibres are so interlaced and matted as to give it the texture and lightness of cork…. Often known as ‘mountain-cork.’ Ibid., 207. Fossil-Cork.
1868. Dana, Min., 234. Mountain Leather is a kind [of asbestos] in thin flexible sheets, made of interlaced fibres; and mountain cork the same in thicker pieces.
8. fig. Applied to a person.
1601. ? Marston, Pasquil & Kath., IV. 39. A slight bubling spirit, a Corke, a Huske.
a. 1631. Donne, Poems (1650), 7. I can love … Her who still weeps with spungie eies, And her who is dry corke, and never cries.
9. Sc. colloq. A small employer or master tradesman; an overseer or foreman. [Perh. not the same word.]
1832. Whistle-Binkie (Sc. Songs), Ser. I. 50. An’ our cork when he’s slack, Will gie ye a hint when he’s takin on han’s.
1856. J. Strang, Glasgow, 129. The corks or small manufacturers of Anderston.
III. 10. attrib. or as adj. Made of or with cork. (Sometimes with hyphen.)
1716. Lond. Gaz., No. 5466/4. His Left Foot Shoe-heel half a Quarter of a Yard high, a Cork-sole answerable.
1766. C. Leadbetter, Royal Gauger, II. iii. (ed. 6), 241. A Cork Plate or Plum, for taking Gauges of Ale or Beer.
1775. Ann. Reg., 82. Providing themselves with cork-belts and cork-collars.
1886. Offic. Guide Museums Econ. Bot. Kew, 144. A Cork hat, as used in Portugal.
1889. Times, 16 Feb., 5/2. A dark-complexioned young man of medium height, with a cork-leg.
11. Comb. a. attributive, as cork-band, -bark, -cambium, -cell, -crop, -hole, -layer, -tissue; b. objective, as cork-bearing. -forming, adjs.; -borer, -boring, -drawer, -maker; c. parasynthetic, as cork-barked, -brained (see d), -heeled (see d), adjs.
1615. E. S., Britain’s Buss, in Arb., Garner, III. 631. These sixty corks must have sixty *Cork-bands to tie them to the net.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 93. *Corkbarke, cortex.
1866. Treas. Bot., 1188. (s.v. Ulmus) The *Cork-barked Elm is in habit intermediate between the common and wych elms.
1759. Ellis, in Phil. Trans., LI. 210. Acorns of the *Cork-bearing oak.
1854. Scoffern, in Orr’s Circ. Sc., Chem. 291. Each of these *cork-borers is a brass tube. Ibid., 356. In the way of *cork-boring.
1878. McNab, Bot., ii. (1883), 38. The *cork cambium forms new annual rings, as the ordinary cambium forms rings of wood.
1882. Vines, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 107. Thus arises … a layer of cells … which continues to form new *cork-cells, the Cork-cambium or layer of Phellogen.
1842. Browning, Soliloquy Sp. Cloister, ii. Not a plenteous *cork-crop.
1800. Weems, Washington, vii. (1877), 52. Mere *cork-drawers and songsters.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., I. ii. § 15. 91. The Lenticels are a peculiarity of *cork-forming Dicotyledons.
1743. Lond. & Country Brewer, III. (ed. 2), 199. Stopping it up … excepting the Top vent or *Cork-hole.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat., V. 480/2. The *cork-layer of the vegetable integument.
1862. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., III. 129. That absurd *corkmaker.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., I. ii. § 15. 90. When succulent organs … are injured, the wound generally becomes closed up by *cork-tissue.
d. Special combs. cork-board, a kind of cardboard, made by mixing ground cork with the paper pulp, used as a non-conductor of heat, etc.; † cork-brain, a light-headed or giddy person; so † cork-brained a.; cork-faucet (see quot.); † cork-fossil = fossil-cork (see 7); cork heeled a., having the heels fitted with cork; † also fig. light-heeled, wanton; cork-leather, a fabric of cork and leather; also of cork and india-rubber; cork-machine, a machine for making corks; cork-oak, the tree (Quercus Suber) from which cork is obtained; cork-pine, cork-press (see quots.); cork-pull, an instrument for extracting a cork that has gone down into the bottle (see Knight, Dict. Mech.); cork-wing, name of a fish, Crenilabrus melas or cornubicus. See also CORK-CUTTER, -JACKET, etc.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Wks., II. 173/2. Some Giddy-headed *Corkbrains. Ibid. (1630), Wks., 25/2 (N.). An vpstart *Corkebraind Iacke.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Cork-faucet, one adapted to be inserted through a cork, to draw the contents of a bottle.
1806. Gregory, Dict. Arts & Sc., I. 437. *Cork fossil … a kind of stone … somewhat resembling vegetable cork.
1604. Dekker, Honest Wh., Wks. 1873, II. 131. Oh, who would trust your *corcke-heeld sex?
c. 1700. Ballad ‘Sir P. Spens.’ Oour Scots nobles wer richt laith To weet their cork-heild-shoone.
1886. W. A. Harris, Tech. Dict. Fire Insur., *Cork-leather, which is waterproof and very elastic, is cork-powder consolidated with india-rubber.
1873. Pr. Alice, in Mem. (1884), 300. Cypresses, stone pines, large *cork oaks.
1873. Atlas of Michigan, Pref. 20. The soft or *‘cork’ pine, so called from the resemblance in softness and texture of the wood to … cork.
1879. Lumberman’s Gaz., 15 Oct. Valuable cork pine timber.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Cork-press, one in which a cork … is rendered elastic, to enable it the more readily to enter the neck of a bottle.
1836. Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, I. 296 (L.). *Corkwing.… It is not confined to the western part of England.
1868. Chambers, Encycl., s.v. Wrasse, The corkwing is not unfrequent on the southern shores of England.
