coke

Pronunciation: /koʊk/

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun carbon fuel produced by distillation of coal
  2. noun Coca Cola is a trademarked cola
  3. noun street names for cocaine

Etymology

The origin is not certain. The OED says it is first attested in 1669. The MED has an earlier attestation in the related sense of "charcoal" in 1430: Middle English coke. This may be the same word as colk (“core”) (perhaps from the notion that coke is the core of the material left after it burning), 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”). If so, cognate with Saterland Frisian Kolk (“maelstrom, depression, whirlpool”), West Frisian kolk (“maelstrom, whirlpool”), Dutch kolk (“maelstrom, vortex, whirlpool”), German Kolk (“pothole”).

In classic literature

Semantic network

Broader (hypernyms)
fuel

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