Definition

1. Verb:

   • To prepare food for eating by applying heat: This is the most common meaning, involving the use of methods like boiling, baking, frying, or grilling to make food edible or more palatable.
   • To undergo the process of being prepared by heat: When food itself is the subject, it means to be heated until ready to eat.
   • To alter or falsify something dishonestly: In informal contexts, it means to tamper with or fabricate information, such as accounts or data.

2. Noun:

   • A person who prepares and cooks food: This refers to someone whose job or role is to cook, either professionally or at home.

Examples of Usage

• Verb:

  • She will cook dinner for the family tonight.
  • Let the rice cook for another ten minutes.
  • The accountant was accused of trying to cook the books.

• Noun:

  • He is an excellent cook and makes delicious pastries.
  • The restaurant hired a new head cook.

Advanced Usage

• "to cook up": To invent or concoct something, often a story, plan, or excuse.

  • He had to cook up a believable excuse for being late.

• "to cook the books": An idiom meaning to falsify financial records.

  • The investigation revealed that the company had been cooking the books for years.

Variants and Related Words

• Cooker (n): An appliance used for cooking, such as a stove or rice cooker.

  • She bought a new pressure cooker.

• Cookery (n): The art, practice, or skill of preparing and cooking food.

  • She is taking a cookery class.

• Cooked (adj): (Of food) having been prepared by heating. Also used informally to mean exhausted.

  • The cooked vegetables were served.
  • After the marathon, I was completely cooked.

Synonyms

• Prepare (v): To make something ready, especially food.
• Falsify (v): To alter information deceitfully (for the dishonest meaning).
• Chef (n): A professional cook (more specific than the general noun 'cook').

Related Phrasal Verbs

• Cook off: (Of ammunition or explosives) to explode accidentally due to excessive heat.

  • The soldiers were warned that the ammunition could cook off in the fire.

• Cook down: To reduce the volume of a liquid by boiling.

  • You need to cook down the sauce until it thickens.

Related Idioms

• Too many cooks spoil the broth: A proverb meaning that if too many people are involved in a task, it may not be done well.

  • We need one clear leader for this project; too many cooks spoil the broth.

• Cook someone's goose: To ruin someone's plans or chances of success.

  • His arrest really cooked his goose for the election.

Noun

1. English navigator who claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain and discovered several Pacific islands (1728-1779)
2. someone who cooks food

Verb

1. transform by heating
   • The apothecary cooked the medicinal mixture in a big iron kettle
2. tamper, with the purpose of deception
   • Fudge the figures
   • cook the books
   • falsify the data
3. transform and make suitable for consumption by heating
   • These potatoes have to cook for 20 minutes
4. prepare for eating by applying heat
   • Cook me dinner, please
   • can you make me an omelette?
   • fix breakfast for the guests, please
5. prepare a hot meal
   • My husband doesn't cook