cook

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kʊk/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English coke,^[2] inherited from Old English cōc,^[3][2] about 700, borrowed from Vulgar Latin *cocus (“cook”),^[3][4] from Latin coquus,^[3][5] a variant of which is cocus,^[2] from coquere (“to cook, prepare food, ripen, digest”),^[3][2] from Proto-Indo-European *pekw- (“to cook, ripen”).^[3][2][5] The Germanic languages had no single native word for all kinds of cooking, and they took over the Latin one: Old Saxon kok, Old High German choh, German Koch, Dutch kok and Swedish kock.^[3][2] Cognates of the Latin verb include Greek péssein “to cook”, Sanskrit pácati “he cooks”, Old Bulgarian pekǫ “I cook” and Welsh pobi “to bake”.^[2][4] The verb, before 1387, is from the noun;^[2][3] Old English had a verb ġecocnian, but the Middle English one seems to be a fresh formation.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A man responsible for preparing food: Old English cōc, about 700,^[2] either the officer in charge of the kitchen of a large household or a tradesman who prepared and sold food; the word was always used of men.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Women who cooked began to be called cooks in the mid-16th century,^[6] 1535 in the OED, especially a woman employed to cook in a private family.^[7] The verb, “to act as cook”, is from about 1380,^[7] and “to make fit for eating by heat” from the late 14th century.^[3] The figurative “to manipulate, falsify” is from the 1630s,^[3][6] and to cook the books is attested by 1954.^[3] What's cooking?, “what's going on?”, is by 1942,^[3] and to cook with gas, “to do well”, is 1930s jive talk,^[3] spread around 1939 by radio programmes.^[3] Of musicians, “to play with excitement”, it is from 1943, originally American slang.^[7] The proverb that too many cooks spoil the broth dates from the 16th century.^[6][7]

Timeline

• c. 700 – a cook.^[2]
• c. 1380 – verb, to act as cook.^[7]
• 1535 – of a woman cook.^[7]
• 1630s – to falsify.^[3][6]
• 1942 – what's cooking?^[3]
• 1943 – to play music with excitement.^[7]
• 1954 – cook the books.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person who prepares food for eating, especially as a job.

Verb

1. To prepare food for eating by applying heat.
2. Of food, to be heated so as to become ready to eat.
3. To alter or falsify so as to give a better impression: cooked the accounts.
4. (informal) To happen or develop: what's cooking?
5. (slang) To perform very well, as of musicians.

Word family

• cookable
• cookless
• cookbook
• cookery
• cookware
• cook-off
• cookhouse
• cookie

Related words

• kitchen
• concoct
• biscuit
• precocious
• cuisine
• culinary

Usage notes

Two dialect verbs of the same spelling have other origins: Scottish and Cumberland cook “to crouch down, hide; appear and disappear by fits and starts”,^[8] and Midland cook “to throw, toss, chuck”.^[8]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
6. ^ a b c d e Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)