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Added 9 October 2026

coke

/kəʊk/ noun

First recorded: 1669 Wiktionary

noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about coke at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

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.
The plant should produce approximately 550,000 tons of screened blast furnace coke per year.

verb

To produce coke from coal.
To turn into coke.
To add deleterious carbon deposits as a byproduct of combustion.
In kerolox engines, some of the fuel flow cokes in the engine's cooling passages over time, requiring thorough cleaning prior to reuse.

noun

Cocaine.(Can we add an example for this sense?)

noun

Alternative letter-case form of Coke (cola-based soft drink, especially Coca-Cola).
Alternative letter-case form of Coke (a serving of cola-based soft drink, especially Coca-Cola).
Alternative letter-case form of Coke (any soft drink, regardless of type).

Origin

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”).

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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