[f. COOK v.1 + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb COOK (lit. and fig.).
1645. Milton, Tetrach., Wks. 1738, I. 221. It is man’s perverse cooking who hath turn’d this bounty of God into a Scorpion.
1815. Hunt, Feast of Poets, 6. And will find ye all out with your cookings and cares.
1873. H. Spencer, Study of Sociol., vi. (1877), 121. ‘Cooking’ of railway accounts and financial prospectuses.
2. concr. That which is cooked at one time; a meal. (Cf. BAKING vbl. sb. 2.)
1804. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., II. 635. The rustic greediness of swallowing two cookings in a day.
3. attrib. and Comb. Cooking-range, a cooking-stove containing several openings for carrying on different operations at once; cooking-stove, a stove adapted for cooking.
c. 1813. Mrs. Sherwood, Ayah & Lady, ix. 59. He was carried under the cooking-boat, and seen no more.
1819. Shelley, Cyclops, 395. Then peeled his flesh with a great cooking knife.
1849. Longf., Kavanagh (1851), 412. Who wants to know about the cooking-range.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xiii. A neat, well-blacked and shining cooking-stove.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xvi. 172. Our cooking-gear.
1875. Jevons, Money (1878), 9. Needful for cooking and drinking purposes.
Mod. Gas cooking-stoves in great variety.
