cookery

Etymology

It is formed from English cook + -ery, from the verb or the noun,^[2][3][4] first as inherited from Middle English cokerie, from coken (“to cook”) with the suffix seen in breuerie, brewery.^[5][6] Cook is from Old English cōc, from Latin coquus (“cook”), from coquō (“to cook”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The skill or practice of preparing and cooking food: before 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis, which says that "Verconius of cokerie Ferst made the delicacie".^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

A cookbook of about 1450 begins "Here Beginnethe a Boke of Kokery".^[5] The word then spread to a particular style of cooking or cuisine (1583), a place where food is cooked (1572), and a dish or item of food (1600), a sense now chiefly West and East African.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as the art of dressing victuals.^[7] From 1611 cookery was also the reworking or fraudulent altering of something, after the verb cook in the sense of falsifying, a sense now rare;^[2] the Shorter Oxford dates it to the early 18th century.^[3] In North America a cookery became the cookhouse of a logging or mining camp.^[2][8]

Timeline

• before 1393 – the art or practice of cooking.^[2][5]
• c. 1450 – Boke of Kokery, a cookbook title.^[5]
• 1572 – a place where food is cooked, a kitchen.^[2]
• 1583 – a particular kind of cooking, a cuisine.^[2]
• 1600 – a cooked dish or item of food.^[2]
• 1611 – the reworking or falsifying of something (now rare).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly British) The art, study or practice of cooking: She took a cookery course in Lyon.^[8][6][2]
2. A particular style or method of cooking; a cuisine.^[2][6]
3. (chiefly US) A place for cooking; in Canada, a cookhouse at a mining or lumber camp.^[8][6][2]

Word family

• cookery book

Related words

• cook
• brewery

Usage notes

The OED labels the main sense chiefly British and Irish English.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins