a. [f. CORK sb.1 + -Y. The fig. uses appear to be the earlier.]
1. Having the nature or character of cork; cork-like.
1756. C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, III. 38. Of a more tenaceous and corky texture.
1836. Macgillivray, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., xxvi. 393. Corky asbestus.
1874. Cooke, Fungi (1875), 24. The greater number of species are leathery or corky.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner., 563. The thick corky layers of Quercus Suber.
1887. All Year Round, 14 May, 394. The sombre water way on which they [boats] ride with a corky buoyancy.
† 2. fig. Dry and stiff, withered, sapless. Obs.
1603. Harsnet, Pop. Impost., 23. To teach an old corkie woman to writhe, tumble, curuet, & fetch her Morice gamboles.
1605. Shaks., Lear, III. vii. 29. Binde fast his corky armes.
3. fig. Light, trifling, frivolous; buoyant, lively, springy; hence, skittish, ticklish, restive. colloq.
1601. ? Marston, Pasquil & Kath., I. 324. That same perpetuall grin, That leades his corkie jests, to make them sinke Into the eares of his deriders.
1631. Weever, Anc. Fun. Mon., 54. Inuenting, out of their owne corkie braines, a new certaine no-forme of Liturgie.
1661. Sir H. Vane’s Politicks, 2. Churles of a light and corky humour.
1746. Eliz. Carter, in Pennington, Mem. (1808), I. 136. Before they are half over I grow so restless and corky, I am ready to fly out of the window.
1782. Sir J. Sinclair, Observ. Scot. Dialect, 100. Corky, airy, brisk.
1862. ‘C. Bede,’ College Life, 24. He’s rather corky at the best of times; what will he be now?
1862. Mrs. H. Wood, Mrs. Hallib., II. xxi. ‘They be getting corky at the beer-shops, now-a-days, and won’t give no trust.’
1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf.-t., iv. 112. They felt so ‘corky’ it was hard to keep them down.
1875. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, II. I. v. § 5. 438. If the horse seems light and corky.
4. Having acquired a flavor of cork; = CORKED 4.
In mod. Dicts.
5. Comb., as corky-brained, -headed adjs. (cf. sense 3, and cork-brained s.v. CORK sb.1 11 d).
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Corky-brain’d Fellow, silly, foolish.
1787. Burns, Brigs of Ayr, 170. Staumrel, corky-headed, graceless Gentry.
1825–79. Jamieson, Sc. Dict. Corky-headit, light-headed, giddy. Roxb.
