3. (colloquial).—To swelter with heat and sweat. In this sense the
Fourbesque has ansare; literally ‘to be out of breath.’
To cook one’s goose, verbal phr. (common).—To ‘settle’; ‘worst’; kill;
or ruin.
English Synonyms. To anodyne; to put to bed; to snuff out; to give, or
cook one’s gruel; to corpse; to cooper up; to wipe out; to spiflicate;
to settle, or settle one’s hash; to squash; to shut up; to send to pot;
to smash; to finish; to do for; to bugger up; to put one’s light out;
to stop one’s little game; to stop one’s galloping; to put on an
extinguisher; to clap a stopper on; to bottle up; to squelch; to play
hell (or buggery) with; to rot; to squash up; to stash; to give a
croaker. For synonyms in the sense of circumvention, see Floored.
French Synonyms. Avoir son affaire (familiar: this also means to have
got ‘a settler,’ and ‘to be absolutely drunk’); buter (thieves’ = ‘to
kill’ or ‘execute’); escarper (thieves’); envoyer essayer une chemise
de sapin (military: literally ‘to send one to try on a deal shirt.’
Cf., ‘wooden surtout’ = coffin); faire suer un chêne (popular: suer =
to sweat; chêne = cove); faire passer le goût du pain (familiar = ‘to
give one his gruel’); coffier (thieves’: an abbreviation of escoffier,
to kill); conir (thieves’); ébasir (thieves’: formerly esbasir;
Fourbesque sbasire and Germania esbasir); mettre à l’ombre (general =
to put in the shade); endormir (thieves’); entailler (thieves’);
abasourdir (thieves’: properly ‘to astound’); chouriner or suriner
(thieves’: ‘chourin’ or surin = a knife); estourbir (thieves’);
scionner (thieves’: from scion = a knife); faire un machabée (thieves’:
in cant machabée = a drowned corpse. Michel thinks the expression
originated either in the reading of II. Macabees, ch. xii., which is
still retained in the Mass for the Dead, or through la danse macabre,
the Dance of Death shown in the engravings of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries); faire flotter un pante (popular = to cook one’s
goose by drowning. Flotter = to float. i.e., like a corpse); crever la
paillasse (popular: literally ‘to rip open the mattress’); laver le
linge dans la saignante (thieves’: to wash linen in blood): dévisser le
trognon à quelqu’un (popular); entonner (popular: see Michel);
estrangouiller (popular = ‘to strangle’; from a veterinary term
étranguillon = ‘the strangles’); tortiller la vis, or le gaviau
(thieves’); terrer (thieves’: to ‘guillotine’); faire la grande
soulasse (thieves’: soulas, Old French = ‘solace’ or ‘comfort’);
rebâtir un pante (thieves’); sonner (popular); lingrer (popular);
envoyer ad patres (popular = ‘to send to one’s fathers’); envoyer en
paradis (general = ‘to send to kingdom-come’); envoyer en parade
(thieves’ = ‘to send on parade’); capahuter (thieves’ = to get rid of
an accomplice to secure his share of the booty; sometimes rendered by
refroidir à la capahut); décrocher (military: literally ‘to unhook,’
‘to take down’); descendre quelqu’un (popular = to bring down); couper
le sifflet (popular = to cut one’s whistle); watriniser (popular: in
reference to M. Watrin, who was murdered by the Decazeville miners in
1886. Cf., the English ‘to burke’); moucher le quinquet (popular: ‘to
snuff the lamp’); faire saigner du nez (thieves’ = ‘to give a bloody
nose’); sabler (thieves’); faire banque (common); suager (thieves’:
from suer, ‘to sweat’).
German Synonyms. Abfetzen (to kill by cutting or stabbing); abmeken,
abmacken (Hebrew mocho = to put aside, to destroy, or to give ‘tit for
tat.’ North German afmurksen); bekern machen (from the Hebrew peger.
Used of animals it is the equivalent of krepieren); hargenen or horeg
sein (‘to kill’ or ‘murder.’ Horeg, the murderer; Horug, the murdered;
nehrog, murdered; nehrog werden, to be murdered; Hereg or Harigo, the
murder); heimthun, or heimerlich spielen (heim, a corruption of the
Hebrew chajim = life); Kappore machen or fetzen (literally ‘to make
purified.’ From the Hebrew kophar); memissen or memissren; die Neschome
nehmen (Hebrew neschomo, the soul or life); pegern or peigern;
rozechenen or rozchenen (Hebrew, rozach = to kill); schächten (Hebrew,
schochat).
Italian Synonym. Sbasire (literally ‘to cause to faint’ or ‘swoon.’
Sbasire su le funi = to swoon on the rope, i.e., to be hanged).
Spanish Synonyms. Apretar á uno la nuez (properly to clutch the Adam’s
apple, i.e., the throat); apiolar (properly ‘to gyve a hawk’ or ‘to tie
game together by the legs’; and metaphorically, ‘to seize’ or
apprehend); despabilar (literally ‘to snuff a candle.’ Cf., Fr. moucher
le quinquet and the Eng. ‘to put on an extinguisher’); apercollar
(also, ‘to seize one by the collar’).
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 360.
When the clarences, the cabs that carry four, came in, they cooked
the hackney-coachmen in no time.
1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
Green, p. 270. Billy’s too big in the Westphalia’s gig-lamps,
you’re the boy to cook Fosbrooke’s goose.
1861. A. Trollope, Framley Parsonage, ch. xlii. Chaldicotes,
Gagebee, is a cooked goose, as far as Sowerby is concerned. And
what difference could it make to him whether the Duke is to own it
or Miss Dunstable.
1865. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary, ch. v. The first Napoleon ...
once nearly killed himself by his addictedness to Provençal
cookery. Yes; a mess of mutton and garlic—’tis said it was
poisoned—very nearly cooked the goose of Achilles.
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 128. Seeing how the
fellow was acting he sent him two ‘shise’ notes, which gave him a
dose that cooked him. I saw the man myself, serving his time at
Dartmoor.
1888. Puck’s Library, May, p. 10. When the chromo first emerged
from chaos, the producers of that kind of picture insisted that the
goose of the artist was cooked.
Cookey or Cookie. To bet a cookie, verbal phr. (American).—The custom
of preparing the cakes still known in Scotland as cookies was part and
parcel of American life. [The cookey, like the English pancake on
Shrove Tuesday, and the hot cross bun on Good Friday, forms a special
old-fashioned dainty at Christmas-tide and New Year. From the Dutch
koekje, dim. of koek, a cake.]
1870. Bret Harte, Luck of Roaring Camp, p. 227. Don’t know what he
is! He lost every hoof and hide, I’ll bet a cookey!
1872. Lloyd’s Weekly, 28 April. ‘Probate Court Report.’ Might have
said she would bet a cookey that the will was in America.
(Laughter.)
1888. Detroit Free Press, 31 March. A book has just been published
to instruct reporters in the use of proper phrases. We bet a cookey
no reporter will ever read it.
Cookeyshine, subs. (old Scots).—An afternoon meal at which cookies
(q.v.) form a staple dish. Cf., Tea-fight, Muffin-worry, etc. (q.v.).
[From cookey, a small cake, + shine (q.v.), an entertainment.]
1863. C. Reade, Hard Cash, I., 103. Dr. Sampson, loq.: We shall see
whether we are on the right system: and if so, we’ll dose her with
useful society in a more irrashinal forrm; conversaziones,
cookeyshines, et cetera. And if we find ourselves on the wrong
tack, why then we’ll hark back.
Cook-Ruffian, subs. (old).—A bad or indifferent cook, ‘who would cook
the devil in his feathers.’
Cool, adj. (colloquial).—1. Impertinent; audacious; calmly impudent.
1870. Figaro, 22 May. It is considered to be cool to take a man’s
hat with his name written in it, simply because you want to get his
autograph.
Cool as a Cucumber, phr. (common).—Without heat; also, metaphorically,
calm and composed.
2. (In reference to money; e.g., a cool hundred, thousand, etc.)
Commonly expletive; but sometimes used to cover a sum a little above
the figure stated.
1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. VIII., ch. xii. Mr. Watson, too,
after much variety of luck, rose from the table in some heat, and
declared he had lost a cool hundred, and would play no longer.
1771. Smollet, Humphry Clinker, l. 41. I’ll bet a cool hundred he
swings before Christmas.
1825. Miss Edgeworth, Love and Law, i., 2. Suppose you don’t get
sixpence costs, and lose your cool hundred by it, still it’s a
great advantage.
1841, Lytton, Night and Morning, bk. II., ch. x. Borrowed his money
under pretence of investing it in the New Grand Anti-Dry-Rot
Company; cool hundred—it’s only just gone, sir.
1890. Illustrated Bits, 29 March, p. 8, col. 2. I made three
thousand last year, but if I have good luck this year I shall make
a cool fifty thousand.