Dictionary

cocktail en · ADJ

Pronunciation

(Australia) audio
/ˈkɒk.teɪl/ (Received-Pronunciation)
/ˈkɑk.teɪl/ (General-American)
/ˈkɔk.tæɪl/ (Australia)

Etymology

Early 17th century, from cock (“male bird”) + tail, in the sense “(a horse with its) tail standing up, like a cock’s”. The origin of the extension to “an alcoholic mixed drink” is unknown. One theory is that it refers to a stimulant (gingering), hence a stimulating drink; compare pick-me-up. Another attested use is for non-thoroughbred racehorses: these were considered "cock-tailed" due to their docked tails. This may have led to the term "cocktail" (sense 1) being used for an adulterated spirit.

Meanings

(obsolete) Ostentatiously lacking in manners.
- The Prince had nothing particular about him but a monstrous smart whip with a gold stag for a handle, which was pronounced a very cocktail looking instrument by the Leicestershire farmers, with whom His Serene Highness is no favorite 1840, The Sporting magazine:
- It looks very cocktail to be seen riding through the streets of London in a scarlet coat ; 1830, Sporting Magazine:
- She always goes about with a brace of loaded revolvers in her belt!! Very cocktail and no occasion for it 2008, Christine Kelly, Mrs Duberly's War: Journal and Letters from the Crimea, 1854-6, →ISBN:
- Nothing looks so cocktail and muffish on a coach as to see a man learning to catch his whip, and after many futile efforts taking it upside down for this purpose, and twisting the thong round and round with the point downwards, as if he was stirring porridge for a pack of hounds. 1875, Charles Thomas Samuel Birch Reynardson, 'Down the Road': Or, Reminiscences of a Gentleman Coachman:

Forms

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
most cocktail	Degree=Sup		lexicographic
more cocktail	Degree=Cmp		lexicographic

cocktail en · NOUN

Pronunciation

(Australia) audio
/ˈkɒk.teɪl/ (Received-Pronunciation)
/ˈkɑk.teɪl/ (General-American)
/ˈkɔk.tæɪl/ (Australia)

Etymology

Early 17th century, from cock (“male bird”) + tail, in the sense “(a horse with its) tail standing up, like a cock’s”. The origin of the extension to “an alcoholic mixed drink” is unknown. One theory is that it refers to a stimulant (gingering), hence a stimulating drink; compare pick-me-up. Another attested use is for non-thoroughbred racehorses: these were considered "cock-tailed" due to their docked tails. This may have led to the term "cocktail" (sense 1) being used for an adulterated spirit.

Meanings

A mixed alcoholic beverage.
- The cocktail in Britain is a rigidly-defined social institution: each has its own particular meaning—the G & T is the alcoholic equivalent of the interview suit; Pernod and black is an alternative to glue sniffing for repentant trendies, etc. 2011, Mark Polonsky et al., USSR: From an Original Idea by Karl Marx, page 32:
- He moved majestically down to mix the cocktails. As he chipped ice, as he squeezed oranges, as he collected vast stores of bottles, glasses, and spoons at the sink in the pantry, he felt as authoritative as the bartender at Healey Hanson's saloon. 1922, Sinclair Lewis, “Chapter 8”, in Babbitt:
- [...] a certain candidate has placed in his account of Loss and Gain, the following items:-- LOSS [...] 411 glasses bitters[,] 25 do. cock-tail 1806 May 6, “Rum! Rum! Rum!”, in Balance and Columbian Repository, volume v, number 18, New York: Hudson, page 142:
- Deane opened the fray by declaring, à propos of dinners, that the only proper way to create a cocktail of the genus Martini was to add a half-spoonful of sherry after the other ingredients had been satisfactorily mixed, if at all. 1904, Charlotte Bryson Taylor, “Chapter VI”, in In the Dwellings of the Wilderness:
- Cock tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it is vulgarly called bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. 1806 May 13, “Communication”, in Balance and Columbian Repository, volume v, number 19, New York: Hudson, page 146:
- They visited a bar noted for its wide range of cocktails.
(broadly, figuratively) A mixture of other substances or things.
- a cocktail of illegal drugs
- This chapter examines how the concurrent phenomena of an assertive monarch, persistent civil war, and economic change affected the political activities of townspeople in three ways: in the relationship between the ‘urban sector’ and the English polity, in the complexion of municipal internal politics, and in the nature of urban participation in the civil wars of 1469–71. In all three of these fields, the particular cocktail of circumstances present in the 1460s encouraged a wide variety of townspeople to become invested emotionally and materially in the course of national politics, as they had not been during much of the 1450s. 2019, Eliza Hartrich, “Edward IV, the Earl of Warwick, and a Changing Urban Sector, 1461–71”, in Politics and the Urban Sector in Fifteenth-Century England, 1413–1471, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 181:
- Motor vehicles, for example, emit a cocktail of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, particulates, heavy metals and (for diesel) sulphur dioxide. 2013, Andrew Farmer, Managing Environmental Pollution, Routledge, →ISBN, page 22:
- Terry Gourvish, the lead author if the authorised commercial history of BR, described the new BTC structure thus: "The conclusion must be that the combination of a few undynamic railwaymen, underpaid full-timers (Commission and General Staff) and poorly-paid part-time businessmen was not a very potent managerial cocktail." 2023 March 8, David Clough, “The long road that led to Beeching”, in RAIL, page 38:
- Scientists found a cocktail of pollutants in the river downstream from the chemical factory.
A horse, not of pure breed, but having only one eighth or one sixteenth impure blood in its veins.
- A “cock-tail” is a horse not purely bred, but with only one-eighth or one-sixteenth impure blood in his veins 1868, Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, volume ii, John Murray, page 11:
(UK, dated, slang) A mean, half-hearted fellow.
- It was in the second affair that poor little Barney showed he was a cocktail. 1854, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC:
A species of rove beetle, so called from its habit of elevating the tail.

Forms

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
ckt	Abbr=Yes		lexicographic
cocktails	Number=Plur		lexicographic

Deriveds

Translations (91)

my ကော့တေး (alcoholic beverage) · sk kokteil (alcoholic beverage) · sk koktail (alcoholic beverage) · ru кокте́йль (alcoholic beverage) · it cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · tl koktel (alcoholic beverage) · yi קאָקטייל (alcoholic beverage) · fi drinkki (alcoholic beverage) · es cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · sq koktej (alcoholic beverage) · ms koktel (alcoholic beverage) · eo koktelo (alcoholic beverage) · cs koktejl (alcoholic beverage) · ru кокте́ль (alcoholic beverage) · fi kimara (alcoholic beverage) · uz kokteyl (alcoholic beverage) · pl koktajl (alcoholic beverage) · et kokteil (alcoholic beverage) · yue 雞尾酒 /鸡尾酒 (alcoholic beverage) · de Cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · pt coquetel (alcoholic beverage) · nb cocktail (mixture of other substances) · fa کوکتل (alcoholic beverage) · ko 칵테일 (alcoholic beverage) · it coccotello (alcoholic beverage) · ro cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · ca còctel (mixture of other substances) · yue 咯嗲 (alcoholic beverage) · sl koktajl (alcoholic beverage) · th ค็อกเทล (alcoholic beverage) · tg коктейль (alcoholic beverage) · id koktail (alcoholic beverage) · sv cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · io koktelo (alcoholic beverage) · el κοκτέιλ (alcoholic beverage) · da cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · lo ຄັອກເທນ (alcoholic beverage) · ro cocteil (alcoholic beverage) · be кактэ́йль (alcoholic beverage) · mr कॉक्टेल (alcoholic beverage) · km ស្រាក្រឡុក (alcoholic beverage) · tr kokteyl (mixture of other substances) · ka კოქტეილი (alcoholic beverage) · af skemerkelkie (alcoholic beverage) · af mengeldrankie (alcoholic beverage) · lt kokteilis (alcoholic beverage) · nn cocktail (mixture of other substances) · io cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · hu koktél (alcoholic beverage) · fi seos (mixture of other substances) · mn коктэйл (alcoholic beverage) · vi cốc-tai (alcoholic beverage) · az kokteyl (alcoholic beverage) · ar كُوكْتِيل (alcoholic beverage) · ky коктейль (alcoholic beverage) · lv kokteilis (alcoholic beverage) · mk коктел (alcoholic beverage) · is hanastél (alcoholic beverage) · uk кокте́йль (alcoholic beverage) · nb cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · da cocktail (mixture of other substances) · tg коктейл (alcoholic beverage) · hy կոկտեյլ (alcoholic beverage) · he קוֹקְטֵיל \ קוקטייל (alcoholic beverage) · myv атякшпуло (alcoholic beverage) · ar كُوكْتَيْل (alcoholic beverage) · sh ко̀ктел (alcoholic beverage) · tr kokteyl (alcoholic beverage) · nl cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · sl koktejl (alcoholic beverage) · fi cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · nn cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · tl kaktel (alcoholic beverage) · kk коктейль (alcoholic beverage) · fi sekoitus (mixture of other substances) · tk kokteýl (alcoholic beverage) · hi कॉकटेल (alcoholic beverage) · sl cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · ur کاک ٹیل (alcoholic beverage) · ja カクテル (alcoholic beverage) · is kokkteill (alcoholic beverage) · bg кокте́йл (alcoholic beverage) · fr cocktail (alcoholic beverage) · ca còctel (alcoholic beverage) · sh kòktel (alcoholic beverage) · ko 혼합주 (alcoholic beverage) · nan-hbl 雞尾酒 /鸡尾酒 (alcoholic beverage) · cmn 調酒 /调酒 (alcoholic beverage) · it polibibita (alcoholic beverage) · cmn 雞尾酒 /鸡尾酒 (alcoholic beverage) · gl cóctel (alcoholic beverage)

wikidata: Q134768

cocktail en · VERB

Pronunciation

(Australia) audio
/ˈkɒk.teɪl/ (Received-Pronunciation)
/ˈkɑk.teɪl/ (General-American)
/ˈkɔk.tæɪl/ (Australia)

Etymology

Early 17th century, from cock (“male bird”) + tail, in the sense “(a horse with its) tail standing up, like a cock’s”. The origin of the extension to “an alcoholic mixed drink” is unknown. One theory is that it refers to a stimulant (gingering), hence a stimulating drink; compare pick-me-up. Another attested use is for non-thoroughbred racehorses: these were considered "cock-tailed" due to their docked tails. This may have led to the term "cocktail" (sense 1) being used for an adulterated spirit.

Meanings

(transitive) To adulterate (fuel, etc.) by mixing in other substances.
(transitive) To treat (a person) to cocktails.
- He dined and cocktailed her at the most exclusive bars and restaurants.

Forms

Spelling	Features	Source
cocktailed	Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part	lexicographic
cocktailed	Tense=Past	lexicographic
cocktailing	Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part	lexicographic
cocktails	Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres	lexicographic

Relateds

swizzle

cocktail en · ADJ

Pronunciation

Etymology

Meanings

Forms

cocktail en · NOUN

Pronunciation

Etymology

Meanings

Forms

Deriveds

Descendants

Hypernyms

Synonyms

Translations (91)

cocktail en · VERB

Pronunciation

Etymology

Meanings

Forms

Relateds