coke
/koʊk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.08 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Solid residue from roasting coal in a coke oven; used principally as a fuel and in the production of steel and formerly as a domestic fuel.
Uncountable
verb
To add deleterious carbon deposits as a byproduct of combustion.
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Coke (cola-based soft drink, especially Coca-Cola).
Informal; Uncountable
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Coke (a serving of cola-based soft drink, especially Coca-Cola).
Countable; Informal
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Coke (any soft drink, regardless of type).
American usage; Informal
Example Sentences
- "The plant should produce approximately 550,000 tons of screened blast furnace coke per year."
- "This Messrs. Greener and Straite allege they have effected by taking a quantity of lampblack or powdered charcoal, or of powdered coke, and which has been purified, by the action of electricity from sulphur and any other mixtures, and digesting the same in diluted nitro-muriatic acid."
- "At Ho-pi (Hopi) in northern Honan two modern shafts were under construction in 1957-8; but the coal from Ho-pi is expected to be of rather poor quality and so will be mixed with rich coal from P'ing-ting-shan (Pingtingshan) in central Honan for coke making."
- "In kerolox engines, some of the fuel flow cokes in the engine's cooling passages over time, requiring thorough cleaning prior to reuse."
- "The waiter came up, and I ordered a Coke for her—she didn't drink—and a Scotch and soda for myself, but the sonuvabitch wouldn't bring me one, so I had a Coke, too."
- "'You have a coke and I'll have a beer and we can talk business.'"
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /koʊk/
- British English: /kəʊk/