cook
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kʊk/
text: Audio (UK) "to cook"
note: some speakers from Northern England and Ireland
ipa: /kuːk/
ipa: /kʉk/
homophone: cuck (most accents without the foot-strut split)
rhymes: -ʊk
Forms: form: cooks
form: cooking
form: cooked
form: cooked
form: cooken
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: cook
form: cook
form: cooked
form: cook
form: cookest
form: cooked
form: cookedst
form: cooks
form: cooketh
form: cooked
form: cook
form: cooked
form: cook
form: cooked
form: cook
form: -
form: cooking
form: cooked
form: cooken
Etymology: From Middle English coken, from the noun cook. In the slang sense of "proceed with some plan", coined by American rapper from California Lil B in 2010 and popularized in viral tweets and TikToks in mid-2022.
Senses: examples: text: I'm cooking bangers and mash.
text: He's in the kitchen, cooking.
text: You could just use ordinary shop-bought kecap manis to marinade the meat, but making your own is easy, has a far more elegant fragrance and is, above all, such a great brag! Flavouring kecap manis is an intensely personal thing, so try this version now and next time cook the sauce down with crushed, split lemongrass and a shredded lime leaf.
ref: 2015 October 27, Matt Preston, The Simple Secrets to Cooking Everything Better, Plum, →ISBN, page 192:
glosses: To prepare food for eating by heating it, often combining with other ingredients.
examples: text: Your suggestion makes sense. You cook iron with coal to get... iron. The coal is expended, where does it go? inside the iron to turn it into steel in real life. I approve
ref: 2011 February 10, Oventoaster, “Iron items to Steel”, in Minecraft Forum:
topics: video-games
glosses: To smelt.
examples: text: The dinner is cooking on the stove.
glosses: To be cooked.
examples: text: Look at that poor dog shut up in that car on a day like today - it must be cooking in there.
synonyms: bake
stew
glosses: To be uncomfortably hot.
examples: text: You would die from what we might call "extremely acute radiation poisoning" – that is, you would be cooked.
ref: 2014, Randall Munroe, “Periodic Wall of the Elements”, in What If?, New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 41:
text: "What's coming?" "Dunno yet. Cindy! Active scanning! Pulse hard, but don't cook any friendlies." "We have sensors that can cook people?" "Another reason why warship combat is not an indoor sport."
ref: 2017 July 6, Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary, archived from the original on 20 Jan 2024:
glosses: To kill, destroy, or otherwise render useless or inoperative through exposure to excessive heat or radiation.
synonyms: fry
glosses: To execute by electric chair.
examples: text: I always cook my frags, in case they try to grab one and throw it back.
topics: government
military
politics
war
synonyms: cook off
glosses: To hold on to a grenade briefly after igniting the fuse, so that it explodes almost immediately after being thrown.
examples: text: My brother was locked up for cooking meth in his basement.
text: The process of cooking meth can leave residue on surfaces all over the home, exposing all of its occupants to the drug.
ref: 2006, Frank Spalding, Methamphetamine: The Dangers of Crystal Meth, page 47:
glosses: To concoct or prepare.
examples: text: They all of them receive the same advices from abroad, and very often in the same words; but their way of cooking it is so different, that there is no citizen, who has an eye to the public good, who can leave the coffee-house with peace of mind...
ref: 1880, Joseph Addison with Richard John Green, “The newspaper”, in Essays of Joseph Addison, London: Roger de Coverly Club, page 154:
glosses: To tamper with or alter; to cook up.
examples: text: Watch this band: they cook!
text: Crank up the Coltrane and start cooking!
text: This album is called Cookin’ at Miles’ request. He said, “After all, that’s what we did – came in and cooked.”
ref: 1957, Miles Davis quoted by Ira Gitler, liner notes to Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, Prestige LP 7094
qualifier: jazz
glosses: To play or improvise in an inspired and rhythmically exciting way. (From 1930s jive talk.)
examples: text: On the Wagner piece, the orchestra was cooking!
text: The tempos were swift. The orchestra cooked, reading [conductor] Kahane's mind and swinging with him as one.
ref: 2012, “Review: Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra won't stand still”, in Los Angeles Times:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: To play music vigorously.
examples: text: Hol' up, let that boy cook!
glosses: To proceed with some plan or course of action, or develop some train of thought towards its conclusion (whether this is advantageous, or comical, or digging into a hole).
examples: text: We had to deal with some problems at first, but now we're cooking.
text: My bar was built by Frazier, Gary Manson, Robert Feck, Jeff Picoli — that's who built my bar. When I hired those people, that's when my bar started cookin'. 'Cause Frazier gets along with anybody — he has a magnetic personality, and he can make the worst piece of shit feel like king for a day.
ref: 1977 August 27, Steve Savage, Susan "Suki" Eagan, “Everything You Wanted to Know About Suki, But Were Too Distracted In Chaps to Ask Her”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 8, page 9:
text: Asensio as AMF might just be the truth man. Bro is cooking and now he has added a goal to top it all off.
ref: 2023 April 2, @WolfRMFC, Twitter, archived from the original on 05 Oct 2023:
text: WAIT YOU'RE ACTUALLY COOKING RN. Emberwake ring. Quick math says that's about 21% more damage than just using tawhoa. Ring also gives fire damage and ignite chance, which is great.
ref: 2023 July 30, u/tokyo__driftwood, “How are we feeling about Earthquake ignite chieftain post-patch?”, in Reddit, r/PathOfExileBuilds, archived from the original on 05 Oct 2023:
text: With the shot clock winding down, LA's superstars got accustomed to deferring to [Austin] Reaves and letting him cook for either open jumpers or moves that ultimately led to and-one's and free-throw attempts.
ref: 2023 August 6, Noel Sanchez, “Lakers News: Re-Signed LA Starter Reveals He Was Prioritizing A Free Agency Return”, in Sports Illustrated, New York, N.Y.: Arena Group Holdings, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 Oct 2023:
text: So Llama 4 immediately zooming up to number 2 on LM Arena would seem to indicate that Meta has really cooked here. They have built this incredible model.
ref: 2025 April 11, Kevin Roose, Casey Newton, “Big Tech’s Tariff Chaos + A.I. 2027 + Llama Drama”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
glosses: To proceed with some plan or course of action, or develop some train of thought towards its conclusion (whether this is advantageous, or comical, or digging into a hole).
To proceed with some advantageous course of action; (more generally) to be successful.
examples: text: The furlough of workers during The Lockdowns left many with a conspiracy bent ample time to cook.
glosses: To proceed with some plan or course of action, or develop some train of thought towards its conclusion (whether this is advantageous, or comical, or digging into a hole).
To develop insane or fringe ideas.
examples: text: He didn't prepare for the debate at all, so his opponent cooked him hard.
text: You didn't have to cook him like that!
glosses: To defeat or humiliate.
examples: text: This new labor law is really cooking working-class people.
glosses: To cause to be cooked, i.e. to put in a hopeless situation.
Synonyms: word: cook
word: do
Hypernyms: sense: to prepare or plan something
word: concoct
sense: to prepare or plan something
word: contrive
sense: to prepare or plan something
word: devise
sense: to prepare or plan something
word: make up
sense: to prepare or plan something
word: plan
sense: to prepare or plan something
word: prepare
Hyponyms: sense: bake, barbecue, boil, braise, fry, grill, microwave, poach, roast, scramble, steam, stew
word: Troponyms
word: bake
word: barbecue
word: blanch
word: boil
word: braise
word: broil
word: fry
word: grill
word: microwave
word: parbake
word: parboil
word: parcook
word: parfry
word: poach
word: roast
word: scald
word: seethe
word: simmer
word: steam
word: stew
word: toast
Derived terms: word: cookability
word: cookable
word: cookaholic
word: cook back
word: cook-chill
word: cook-chilled
word: cook-chilling
word: cooker
word: cooking
word: cooking apple
word: cooking box
word: cooking lager
word: cooking on gas
word: cooking plate
word: cooking pot
word: cooking-pot
word: cooking sherry
word: cooking show
word: cooking soda
word: cooking spray
word: cooking torch
word: cooking utensil
word: cooking with gas
word: cook out
word: cook someone's goose
word: cook the books
word: cook through
word: cook up
word: freezer cooking
word: home-cook
word: home-cooked
word: microcook
word: miscook
word: now you're cooking
word: outcook
word: overcook
word: parcook
word: precook
word: recook
word: red-cook
word: slow-cook
word: someone's goose is cooked
word: there's more than one way to cook an egg
word: uncook
word: undercook
word: what's cooking
Related terms: english: fear of cooking
translation: fear of cooking
word: mageiricophobia
word: concoct
word: scramble
word: food
word: cookware