"cook someone's goose" meaning in English

See cook someone's goose in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

IPA: /ˈkʊk ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈɡuːs/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈkʊk ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈɡus/ [General-American] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cook someone's goose.wav [Southern-England] Forms: cooks someone's goose [present, singular, third-person], cooking someone's goose [participle, present], cooked someone's goose [participle, past], cooked someone's goose [past]
Etymology: Various folk etymologies have been suggested, but the true etymology remains unknown. Etymology templates: {{glossary|folk etymology|folk etymologies}} folk etymologies, {{unknown|en|nocap=1}} unknown Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} cook someone's goose (third-person singular simple present cooks someone's goose, present participle cooking someone's goose, simple past and past participle cooked someone's goose)
  1. (idiomatic, informal) To spoil one's plans or hope of success. Wikipedia link: Michael Quinion Tags: idiomatic, informal Categories (lifeform): Geese Synonyms: do someone's goose [rare], drive a coach and horses through, upset the applecart, spoil Related terms: goose is cooked, kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, wild-goose chase Translations (to spoil one's plans or hope of success): die Suppe versalzen (German), keresztülhúzza a számításait (Hungarian), keresztbe tesz neki (Hungarian), bajt hoz rá (Hungarian), conciare per le feste (Italian), scompigliare i piani (Italian), pomrsiti konce [idiomatic] (Serbo-Croatian), pokvariti račune [idiomatic] (Serbo-Croatian)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for cook someone's goose meaning in English (7.5kB)

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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "text": "I like this Goose Lake country better than any I've seen east of the Cascade range, and if some mishap don't cook my goose, I hope to give you a good account of it, if not of myself.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "[1918 May 2, John Terraine, quoting Frederick Scott Oliver, “The Gambler’s Fling”, in The Great War (Wordsworth Military Library), Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, published 1997, page 156",
          "text": "[W]hen is it reasonable to think that the Americans will be able to put in that immense army of three millions, fully equipped, each man with a hair mattress, a hot-water bottle, a gramophone, and a medicine chest, which they tell us will get to Berlin and ‘cook the goose’ of the Kaiser? [In a letter from F. S. Oliver to his brother.]]",
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          "ref": "1931, Anthony Gilbert [pseudonym; Lucy Beatrice Malleson], chapter 6, in The Case against Andrew Fane, London: W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co., →OCLC; republished London: The Murder Room, 2004, section 1",
          "text": "\"Well,\" remarked Dobbie succinctly, \"that rather cooks his goose, doesn't it?\"",
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        {
          "ref": "1941 April 4, D[aniel] K. R. Crosswell, quoting Vivian Dykes, “Forging the Mold”, in Beetle: The Life of Walter Bedell Smith (American Warriors), Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, published 2010, part 3 (The Towering Figure—George C. Marshall), page 254",
          "text": "\"I am afraid Bill [William Joseph Donovan] is rapidly cooking his own goose by lobbying,\" Dykes recorded on 4 April. \"[Walter Bedell] Smith is getting completely fed up with [Donovan].\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1943 October, Robert McCloskey, “The Case of the Sensational Scent”, in Homer Price, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, December 1966, →OCLC, page 18",
          "text": "Well I don't care if it's a thing or a mammal or a skunk, he can't sleep on our money. I'll cook that mammal's goose!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1984, Donald Maddox, “Antipathiquelin and the Rhetoric of Torts”, in Semiotics of Deceit: The Pathelin Era […], Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press; Cranbury, N.J.; London: Associated University Presses, page 95",
          "text": "To express his antipathy, the lawyer manipulates the judicial process, its language and technicalities, to show that if he was formerly unprepared to serve Guillaume the promised feast, he is now eager to help him cook his own goose.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1987, Sholem Aleichem [pseudonym; Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich], “[The Railway Stories] The Man from Buenos Aires”, in Hillel Halkin, transl., Tevye the Dairyman and The Railway Stories (Library of Yiddish Classics), New York, N.Y.: Schocken Books; republished New York, N.Y.: Schocken Books, [2008?], page 172",
          "text": "One false step can cook your goose for good. Before you know it, there's such a big stink that it's smeared all over the newspapers.",
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        "(idiomatic, informal) To spoil one's plans or hope of success."
      ],
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        {
          "word": "goose is cooked"
        },
        {
          "word": "kill the goose that lays the golden eggs"
        },
        {
          "word": "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander"
        },
        {
          "word": "wild-goose chase"
        }
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          "tags": [
            "rare"
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          "word": "do someone's goose"
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        {
          "word": "drive a coach and horses through"
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          "word": "upset the applecart"
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        {
          "word": "spoil"
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          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
          "word": "die Suppe versalzen"
        },
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          "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
          "word": "keresztülhúzza a számításait"
        },
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          "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
          "word": "keresztbe tesz neki"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
          "word": "bajt hoz rá"
        },
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          "code": "it",
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          "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
          "word": "conciare per le feste"
        },
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          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
          "word": "scompigliare i piani"
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          "code": "sh",
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          "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
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        },
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          "code": "sh",
          "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
          "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
          "tags": [
            "idiomatic"
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          "word": "pokvariti račune"
        }
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      ]
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      "tags": [
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  "word": "cook someone's goose"
}
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      "word": "goose is cooked"
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      "word": "kill the goose that lays the golden eggs"
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      "word": "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander"
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          "text": "I like this Goose Lake country better than any I've seen east of the Cascade range, and if some mishap don't cook my goose, I hope to give you a good account of it, if not of myself.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
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          "text": "[W]hen is it reasonable to think that the Americans will be able to put in that immense army of three millions, fully equipped, each man with a hair mattress, a hot-water bottle, a gramophone, and a medicine chest, which they tell us will get to Berlin and ‘cook the goose’ of the Kaiser? [In a letter from F. S. Oliver to his brother.]]",
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          "ref": "1931, Anthony Gilbert [pseudonym; Lucy Beatrice Malleson], chapter 6, in The Case against Andrew Fane, London: W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co., →OCLC; republished London: The Murder Room, 2004, section 1",
          "text": "\"Well,\" remarked Dobbie succinctly, \"that rather cooks his goose, doesn't it?\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1941 April 4, D[aniel] K. R. Crosswell, quoting Vivian Dykes, “Forging the Mold”, in Beetle: The Life of Walter Bedell Smith (American Warriors), Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, published 2010, part 3 (The Towering Figure—George C. Marshall), page 254",
          "text": "\"I am afraid Bill [William Joseph Donovan] is rapidly cooking his own goose by lobbying,\" Dykes recorded on 4 April. \"[Walter Bedell] Smith is getting completely fed up with [Donovan].\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "1943 October, Robert McCloskey, “The Case of the Sensational Scent”, in Homer Price, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, December 1966, →OCLC, page 18",
          "text": "Well I don't care if it's a thing or a mammal or a skunk, he can't sleep on our money. I'll cook that mammal's goose!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1984, Donald Maddox, “Antipathiquelin and the Rhetoric of Torts”, in Semiotics of Deceit: The Pathelin Era […], Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press; Cranbury, N.J.; London: Associated University Presses, page 95",
          "text": "To express his antipathy, the lawyer manipulates the judicial process, its language and technicalities, to show that if he was formerly unprepared to serve Guillaume the promised feast, he is now eager to help him cook his own goose.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1987, Sholem Aleichem [pseudonym; Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich], “[The Railway Stories] The Man from Buenos Aires”, in Hillel Halkin, transl., Tevye the Dairyman and The Railway Stories (Library of Yiddish Classics), New York, N.Y.: Schocken Books; republished New York, N.Y.: Schocken Books, [2008?], page 172",
          "text": "One false step can cook your goose for good. Before you know it, there's such a big stink that it's smeared all over the newspapers.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "glosses": [
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      ],
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        "(idiomatic, informal) To spoil one's plans or hope of success."
      ],
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        {
          "tags": [
            "rare"
          ],
          "word": "do someone's goose"
        },
        {
          "word": "drive a coach and horses through"
        },
        {
          "word": "upset the applecart"
        },
        {
          "word": "spoil"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
      "word": "die Suppe versalzen"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
      "word": "keresztülhúzza a számításait"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
      "word": "keresztbe tesz neki"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
      "word": "bajt hoz rá"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
      "word": "conciare per le feste"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
      "word": "scompigliare i piani"
    },
    {
      "code": "sh",
      "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
      "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "word": "pomrsiti konce"
    },
    {
      "code": "sh",
      "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
      "sense": "to spoil one's plans or hope of success",
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "word": "pokvariti račune"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cook someone's goose"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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