English
cocktail
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈkɒkteɪl/
Noun

cocktail (plural cocktails)

  1. A mixed alcoholic beverage.
    Synonyms: mixed drink, ckt
    They visited a pub noted for the wide range of cocktails they serve.
    • 1806, 13 May 1806 edition of Balance and Columbian Repository, published by Hudson, New York, (first appearance in print):
      Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it is vulgarly called a 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.
  2. A mixture of other substances or things.
    Scientists found a cocktail of pollutants in the river downstream from the chemical factory.
    a cocktail of illegal drugs
  3. A horse, not of pure breed, but having only one eighth or one sixteenth impure blood in its veins.
  4. (UK, slang, dated) A mean, half-hearted fellow; a coward.
    • It was in the second affair that poor little Barney showed he was a cocktail.
  5. A species of rove beetle, so called from its habit of elevating the tail.
Translations Adjective

cocktail

  1. (obsolete) Ostentatiously lacking in manners.
Verb

cocktail (cocktails, present participle cocktailing; past and past participle cocktailed)

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


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