cook up v.
1. to tamper with, to falsify; thus n. cook-up, an act of cheating.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Peregrine Pickle (1964) 725: Some falsified printed accounts, artfully cooked up, on purpose to mislead and deceive. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Torchy 238: He’s quittin’ because he’s too straight to cook up the books the way you told him. | |
 | in Democrat & Chron. (Rochester, NY) 11 Apr. 38/6: As he put it, ‘everybody is happy over the result , and any talk of a “cook-up” will do the game no good’. |
2. to invent, to fabricate.
| Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1985) 49: Their cook’d up story had not, it is probable, pass’d so smoothly. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 12: But yet, an imp, can always see, / Cooking some mischief up for me. | |
| ‘The Lousiad’ Works (1794) I 253: I’ve cook’d up a Petition. | |
| ‘Royal Visit to Exeter’ Works (1801) V 101: The doul’s in’t if he can’t cook up Zomethin that’s short and zweet. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | St Ronan’s Well (1833) 296: No man like you for stealing other men’s inventions, and cooking them up in your own way. | |
| Paul Clifford II 41: You have only to say the word, and the Cabinet can cook up an embassy to Owhyhee, and send Raffden there. | |
| Clockmaker I 171: I had no art nor part in it. It was cooked up at that ’ere Convention, at Town Hall. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 28 Dec. 2/4: [headline] The schuylkill banger garroting crowd [...] an alibi to be cooked up. | |
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 97: We cooked up a scheme. | |
| Out for the Coin 76: I was trying to cook up a chance to hand a line of talk to de main Stake. | |
| Knocking the Neighbors 82: He had been in the private Lair of the Sure-Thingers when they were cooking up some new Method of collecting much Income. | |
| Clicking of Cuthbert 107: It’s just the sort of scheme he would cook up. | |
| ‘Tight Spot’ in Complete Stories 15 Sept. 🌐 I don’t know the kind of a job you’ve been cooking up. | |
| ‘Boil Some Water’ in Pat Hobby Stories (1967) 48: I don’t know who cooked it up. | |
| Tomboy (1952) 183: What are you two cooking up now? | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Jimmy Brockett 25: When I read in the papers first that he was half Russian I thought it was just a lurk that McGrath had cooked up. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Till Human Voices Wake Us 127: I don’t know what the charges were but they can cook up anything. | |
| Quality of Violence (1978) 23: Biddy! I know what you’re cooking up. It’s a pack of lies. It’s a heap of silly dreams. | |
| Pimp 113: I’ll go in and cook up something. | |
| Poor Fellow My Country 614: What you cookin’ up with old Billy? | |
| You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 82: He cooked up a scheme [...] to sell Les a house. | |
| Skin Tight 178: He kept cooking up lame excuses for postponing Heather’s elaborate cosmetic surgery. | |
| Night People 171: I don’t believe that. This is somethin’ your daddy cooked up, isn’t it? | |
| I, Fatty 98: I already told you about helping to cook up the whole tramp thing. | |
| ‘Lady Madeline’s Dive’ in ThugLit Sept./Oct. [ebook] ‘It was him! He cooked the whole thing up’. | |
| Stoning 286: ‘Onions reckons the incidents are cooked up [...] they’re all just hype’. |
3. to counterfeit, to forge.
| Paul Pry 30 Sept. 181/3: This man cooked up a love diary of George the Fourth’s tricks with the Marchioness of Conyngham. |
4. to happen, to develop.
| Gay-cat 274: I see’d the mischief cookin’ up an’ I did nothin’ to stop it. | |
| ‘Fifty-Grand Funeral’ in Ten Detective Aces Dec. 🌐 You heard things were cookin’ up. |
5. to manufacture or prepare drugs.
(a) to prepare opium for smoking.
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 54: Cook Up. – [...] To prepare opium for smoking. | |
| Fast One (1936) 20: I was about to cook up a couple loads [...] I’m down to two pipes every other day. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 57: cook up a pill [...] cook up one To prepare a pill for opium smoking. | |
| Narcotics Lingo and Lore. | |
| World’s Toughest Prison 795: cook up – Prepare opium for smoking. |
(b) (US Und.) to boil nitroglycerine out of dynamite.
| Keys to Crookdom 77: ‘Cooking up’ nitroglycerin in the hobo ‘jungles’ is now an everyday occurrence. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
(c) to prepare an injection of a narcotic drug, usu. heroin, by heating a measure of the powdered drug plus some water in a teaspoon or bottle cap.
| Hop-Heads 17: Dawson Sue lost no time in ‘cooking up a shot’ for her company. | |
| You Can’t Win (2000) 136: I think we’d better cook up a shot just to see if the stuff is all right. | |
| Women’s Home Companion June in Hamilton Men of the Und. 214: I’d cook up four caps for a single shot. | |
| Junkie (1966) 37: Junk is cooked up in a spoon and sucked into the dropper through a little piece of cotton. | |
| Scene (1996) 39: Marsha Lee thought of cooking up four things instead of six. | |
| Addict in the Street (1966) 28: When you cook the stuff [...] You measure out the heroin into the water, light a match, and cook it up. | |
| Panic in Needle Park (1971) 74: I was just cooking up, ready to get off. | |
| Dopefiend (1991) 9: She cooked up her dope in a large bottle top. [Ibid.] 78: I used to watch him cook up that stuff. | |
| Ringolevio 43: Solly and O’Keefe cooked their stuff up in a bottle cap. | |
| Airtight Willie and Me 66: She cooked up a spoon and drew a shot up into the dropper. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) ‘The Law of Retribution’ in Eve. Sun Turned Crimson (1998) 175: I went to cook up my usual fix. | |
| Trainspotting 10: Johnny even helped Sick Boy tae cook up and shoot home. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | The Joy (2015) [ebook] Me lighter is running short on juice, but there should be enough left to cook up this shot. | |
| Mr Blue 364: Three were still in the cell cooking up. | |
| Grits 22: Ee cooks up a shot while Bill drools and twitches in is seat. | |
| Life 408: I’m cooking up the spoon. | |
| The Force [ebook] [C]hasing the people out in the hope that some junkie cooking up will burn it down and he can collect the insurance. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 128: I cooked up a batch of jungle juice and took three good jolts. |
(d) to turn cocaine into freebase by heating it up [see freebase v.].
| Candy 73: Tucker [...] didn’t actually know how to cook it [i.e. cocaine] up. |
(e) to make crack cocaine from cocaine hydrochloride base.
| (con. 1982–6) Cocaine Kids (1990) 59: He ignores him, partly because he must cook up more crack. | |
| Crackhouse 74: Even the big-time coke man [...] even the one selling keys is selling cooked-up stuff more. | |
| ONDCP Street Terms 6: Cooking up — To process powdered cocaine into crack. |
(f) to manufacture methamphetamine.
| Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 108: They cook up speed in those shacks. | |
| Snitch Jacket 87: They taught me [...] to cook up meth in a Motel 6 sink. | |
| ‘Calico County’ 🎵 Have a case of cold pill / [...] / Hydrochloric acid / [...] / That’s the way we cook it up / In Calico County. |
6. to make.
| It’s Up to You 41: When do you expect to get those glad garments cooked up? | |
| Stevedore II iii: These niggers are cooking up some trouble, officer. | |
| (con. WWII) Hollywoodland (1981) 89: Another mysterious invention the Sponsors cooked up at the lab. |
7. (US black) to enjoy oneself, to have a good time [cook v.1 (16)].
| Juba to Jive 111: Cook up (1930s–1950s) [...] to get in the swing of things [...] getting in the groove. |
In phrases
(drugs) to prepare a pipe of opium.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
(US) to advocate enthusiastically.
| in Sweet Daddy 43: And I’m not cooking up a storm for H. |
(US) to defeat comprehensively.
| Violent Night n.p.: If you want to get back at him, here’s your chance. You can cook him up brown. |
(US campus) to ‘neck’ with, to pet.
| Sl. U. 62: I cooked up with her at the party. |