# coke

Pronunciation: say "KOHK" US /koʊk/, UK /kəʊk/, AUS /koʉk/

## Noun · Coke

1. Coca-Cola specifically, or more loosely any cola-flavored soft drink. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A cola drink, especially the one sold as Coca-Cola.
   - _The bar makes its rum and Coke with a squeeze of fresh lime._
   - _She cut back on Coke after her dentist warned her about the sugar._
2. A single serving of Coca-Cola or another cola, in a bottle, glass, or can. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A bottle, glass, or can of cola, such as Coca-Cola.
   - _She ordered a Coke for herself and a beer for her brother._
   - _Three empty Cokes sat on the desk next to his laptop._
5. Any soft drink, whatever its kind or flavor. *(dialectal, Southern US, US)*
   - Simple: Any soft drink of any kind, not only cola.
   - _Down in Alabama, my grandmother still asks if we want a Coke, then hands out ginger ale and grape soda._
   - _Y'all grab a Coke from the cooler; there's root beer, orange, and lemon-lime._

## Noun

3. The drug cocaine. *(slang)*
   - Simple: The drug called cocaine.
   - _The singer later admitted that coke had nearly wrecked his career._
   - _Detectives say the gang moved coke through the port inside banana crates._
4. The solid residue left when coal is roasted in a coke oven, used chiefly as fuel and in making steel, and formerly as a household fuel.
   - Simple: A solid fuel made by heating coal in an oven, used in making steel and once for heating homes.
   - _Blast furnaces use coke both as fuel and to strip oxygen from iron ore._
   - _Before natural gas reached the town, many households heated their homes with coke delivered by the ton._

## Verb

6. To process coal so that it becomes coke.
   - Simple: To make coke out of coal.
   - _Steelmakers coke high-grade coal to fuel their blast furnaces._
   - _The company coked coal from its own mines until the plant closed._
7. To change into coke.
   - Simple: To become coke.
   - _Only certain grades of coal coke well enough for steelmaking._
   - _Left in the oven too long, the mixture coked into a hard gray mass._

## Other meanings

- (verb) To leave harmful carbon deposits as a byproduct of combustion, especially in car and rocket engines.
- (proper noun) A family name of English origin.

## Origin

**Meanings 4, 6–7** — The origin is uncertain. It is recorded from 1669, with an earlier Middle English coke meaning "charcoal" from 1430, and it may be the same word as colk (“core”), perhaps because coke is the core left after the material burns. If so, it comes from Old English *colc (“hole, well”), from Proto-West Germanic *kolk, from Proto-Germanic *kulukaz (“a hollow, depression”), from Proto-Indo-European *g(ʷ)el- (“to swallow, devour; gullet”), and is cognate with Dutch kolk (“whirlpool”) and German Kolk (“pothole”).
**Meaning 3** — Arose around 1908 in American English as a clipping of cocaine.
**Meanings 1–2, 5** — A shortening of Coca-Cola, the brand name of the soft drink.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/coke (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).