† 1. Furnished with a cork sole or heel. Obs. (Cf. CHOPINE.)
1519. Horman, Vulg., 113. She wereth corked slippers to make hir tal and feet.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. xv. (Arb.), 49. Those high corked shoes or pantofles, which now they call in Spaine and Italy Shoppini.
1615. T. Adams, Spir. Navigator, 52. Cork’d at the heeles.
2. Stopped or confined with a cork; also fig. (Also with up.)
1836–9. Dickens, Sk. Boz (1877), 198. Giving full vent to a hitherto corked-up giggle.
3. Blackened with burnt cork.
1836. T. Hook, G. Gurney, II. 205. With their … painted cheeks, corked whiskers, and chalked necks.
1836–9. Dickens, Sk. Boz (1850), 73/2. Partially corked eyebrows.
4. Of wine: Tasting of the cork; spoiled by an unsound cork into the substance of which the wine penetrates.
1830. Marryat, King’s Own, xxxiv. This wine is corked.
1852. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, xxv. 148. This [wine] fortunately was less corked than the first.
Hence Corkedness nonce-wd., state or quality of being corked (sense 4).
1888. Standard, 10 Sept., 5/2. Hundreds of the most lavish hosts … would scorn to offer a bottle with even a suspicion of corkedness.
