[f. CORK sb.1: in various uses, having no connection with each other.]
I. † 1. trans. To furnish (a shoe) with a cork sole or heel. Obs.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Liéger des pantoufles. to corcke slippers.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., IX. xlvii. (1612), 218. Then wore they Shooes of ease, now of an inch-broad, corked hye.
1834. Planché, Brit. Costume, 268. The [shoes and slippers of the men] ‘corked’ … and richly ornamented.
b. To provide or fit with a cork (as a float).
1641. S. Smith, Herringbusse Trade, 11. They are to bring the Nets to their ropes, and … Corke them, and make them in all respects fit.
II. 2. To stop (a bottle, cask, etc.) with, or as with, a cork; and so to confine or shut up (the contents of a bottle, etc.).
1659. Gayton, Art of Longevity, 20. In bottles close Corkt up a prisner.
1744. Berkeley, Lett. on Tar Water, § 2. Keep it in bottles, well corked.
1759. Ellis, in Phil. Trans., Li. 209. Then cork the bottle.
1807. T. Thomson, Chem. (ed. 3), II. 334. He corked it up, and kept it some time.
b. transf. To stop up as with a cork; to shut up like the contents of a bottle.
1650. [see CORKING, below].
1758. J. S., Le Dran’s Observ. Surg. (1771), 22: The Fat had corked up the Extremity.
1824. Medwin, Convers. w. Byron (1832), II. 45. Rogers had composed some very pretty commendatory verses on me; but they were kept corked up for many long years.
III. 3. To blacken with burnt cork.
1836. [see CORKED 3].
Hence Corking vbl. sb.
1650. H. More, Observ. Anthrop. Theomag., 51. The corking-up close of the urine of a bewitched party.
1891. Daily News, 23 Sept., 5/4. Bottles, corks, corking apparatus, and other appliances used in manufacturing sparkling wines.
