▪ I. coke, n.1
(kəʊk)
Also 7–9 coak, 8 coake, cowke.
[Known only from the 17th c., when classed by Ray as a North-country word. Possibly the same as the northern colk n. (also spelt coke) a core, coke being viewed as the hard core of the coal left after other parts have been consumed. The early use of the word as an individual name with pl. coaks, cokes, would agree with this. (Thence also mod.F. coke pl. cokes.) Cf. for both sense and form, the following, which appears to combine the senses of core and cinder.
1878 Cumbrld. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Cowk, the core. ‘It's badly burnt lime, it's nought but cowks.’]
1. The solid substance left after mineral coal has been deprived by dry distillation of its volatile constituents, being a form of carbon of more compact texture, but with more impurities, than the charcoal obtained by a similar process from wood. † a. with a and pl. Obs.
| 1679 Plot Staffordsh. (1686) 128 The coal thus prepared [by charring] they call coaks. 1785 Trans. R. Soc. Edin. (1788) I. 241 That species of coal..burns like coaks, without flame or smoak. 1795 J. Aikin Manchester 314 Beds of cokes or cinders have been discovered. |
b. as a substance:
no pl. Slang
phr. (imper.)
go and eat coke: refrain from addressing, or otherwise annoying, the speaker.
| 1669 Worlidge Syst. Agric. (1681) 323 Coke is Pit-coal or Sea-coal burned or converted into the nature of Charcoal. 1674 Ray N.C. Words, Coke, Pit-coal or Sea-cole charred: It is now become a word of general use. 1729 Martyn in Phil. Trans. XXXVI. 32 Some Cowke (or Cinders of Pit-coal). 1782 Specif. H. H. Conway's Patent No. 1310 Coal..not wasted or consumed, but turned into a useful cinder, generally called coake. 1787 Fordyce in Phil. Trans. LXXVII. 312 Coak, or pit-coal charred, that is, burnt till no smoak arises. 1854 Ronalds & Richardson Chem. Technol. (ed. 2) I. 104 Coals may be subdivided with reference to the production of coke into..the coking and non-coking. |
| 1891 Farmer Slang II. 150/1 Go and eat coke (vulgar), a phrase indicative of contempt. 1908 Magnet I. No. 1, Oh, go and eat coke! 1959 I. & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolch. x. 178 When accosted by an irritating person..they..suggest..‘Go and eat coke’. |
c. (
a) Tin plate made from iron produced in a cokery. (
b) A grade of tin plate, more thinly coated than charcoal plate, used for canning and general purposes;
= coke plate below.
| 1930 Sheet Metal Industries Apr. 693 (Advt.), Tinplates... Brands... ‘Henza’ (Cokes), ‘Amfin’ (special cokes). 1936 W. R. Brown Tinplate (ed. 3) 6 Coke Tinplates is a commercial description of standard quality for tinplate purposes... Best Coke are tinplates carrying a slightly higher coating of tin. 1951 Engineering 21 Dec. 771/1 Tinplate is produced in three coating weights..‘common cokes’, ‘standard cokes’, and ‘best cokes’. |
2. attrib. and
Comb., as
coke-like adj.;
coke barrow,
coke bogey,
coke-crusher,
coke dust,
coke fork,
coke-furnace,
coke-miner;
coke-breeze (see
breeze n.3);
coke finish, a coating given to a sheet of coke (see 1 c);
coke-oil (see
quot.);
coke-oven, an oven, furnace, kiln, or retort in which coke is produced by the expulsion of gas from bituminous coal; hence
coke-oven gas, gas so produced;
coke (tin) plate, tin plate made from iron refined in a cokery; tin plate having a lighter coating than charcoal plate;
coke-tower, a high tower filled with coke, used as a condenser, in the manufacture of hydrochloric acid.
| a 1884 Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl., Coke Barrow, a large semi-cylindrical sheet-iron two-wheeled barrow used about coke ovens and furnaces. |
| 1921 Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §699 Coke man..fills coke bogeys with coke fork from stack, [etc.]. |
| 1884 Coke breeze [see breeze n.3]. 1956 W. D. Hargreaves in D. L. Linton Sheffield 289 The fines..have been sintered by heating with coke breeze in an oxidizing atmosphere. |
| 1877 Encycl. Brit. VI. 118/1 The outside of the heap [of coal, in coking] is covered with a coating of wet coke dust. 1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl., Coke-dust, powdered coke; used for blacking foundry molds. |
| 1898 Jrnl. Iron & Steel Inst. LII. 36 Sheets..may be coated with a good common coke finish with about 2 lbs. of tin, a heavier coating being applied for a charcoal finish. 1904 Harbord & Hall Metall. of Steel iii. xxxiv. 536 The rolls are driven at a definite speed which determines the amount of tin taken up by the plate.., the object kept in view being to give what is known as a ‘coke finish’ to a cwt. of plates with 2 lbs. 4 ozs. to 2 lbs. 6 ozs. of tin. |
| a 1877 Knight Dict. Mech., Coke fork, a ten-tined fork for shoveling coke. |
| 1816 J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art II. 565 Prepared with coke-fuel. |
| 1884 Pall Mall G. 25 Jan. 3/2 The coke-miners at Connellsville, Pensylvania. |
| 1862 Chambers's Encycl. IV. 645/1 There remains..a large residue of pitch, which is again distilled.., giving off an oil called coke-oil. |
| 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 997 A front elevation of two..coke-ovens. 1861 J. Percy Metallurgy 157 In its simplest form a coke-oven is a chamber of fire-brick or some other refractory material, having an arched roof in which is a hole and an entrance below. 1930 Engineering 9 May 610/3 The blast-furnace and coke-oven gases. |
| 1878 Technol. Dict. (ed. 3) II. 151/1 Coke-plate (oppos. to charcoal-plate), Das Steinkohlenblech, Tôle au coke. Ibid., Coke-tin-plate, Das Steinkohlenweissblech, das gepuddelte Weissblech, fer-blanc au coke. 1956 W. E. Hoare Tinplate Handbk. (ed. 3) iv. 15. Coke Plates, Charcoal Plates. The adjectives coke and charcoal are still used in specifying and indicating tin coating weight. Ibid. ix. 40 Hot-dipped coke tinplate is used for the manufacture of decorated boxes. |
| 1871 Tyndall Fragm. Sci. (ed. 6) I. ii. 48 The images of the two coke points. |
▪ II. coke, n.2 Slang (
orig. U.S.)
(
kəʊk)
abbrev. of
cocaine (in its use as a drug). Also
attrib. and
Comb.| 1908 R. S. Baker Following Colour Line iii. 47 They buy the ‘coke’ in the form of powder and snuff it up the nose. 1912 E. B. Lowry Himself xx. 179 A few years ago ‘coke’ fiends in a certain locality in Chicago made a regular practice of buying ‘―'s Catarrh Cure’. 1927 ‘J. Barbican’ Confess. Rum-Runner iv. 47 No matter what you've done—smuggling, counterfeiting, coke-peddling, shooting, [etc.]. 1928 E. Wallace Flying Squad xvi. 150 It's your ‘coke’ trade that's stirring up the Yard. 1959 P. Capon Amongst those Missing 233 He started introducing her to drugs... Reefers at first, and then, under the influence of reefers, coke. |
Hence
coke v.2 refl., to drug oneself with cocaine; also with
up;
coked (up) a., drugged with cocaine (or a similar drug);
cokey,
cokie, a cocaine-addict.
| 1922 E. Ferguson Black Candle i. i. 20 Cocainomaniacs are commonly called ‘cokies’. 1924 G. C. Henderson Keys to Crookdom xxiv. 307 When ‘coked up’ he will murder and rob and steal. 1929 D. Hammett Red Harvest xxvii, You gallop out, coked to the edges, charging at the whole world with both eyes shut. 1934 J. G. Brandon One-Minute Murder xxiii. 247 His first glance at the shivering, stricken-looking creature..told him that the man was a ‘cokey’. 1937 ‘David Hume’ Cemetery First Stop i. 8 He didn't mind men getting tangled with marihuana smokes or ‘coking’ themselves at times. a 1953 Dylan Thomas Quite Early One Morning (1954) 38 These psychopathic gorillas coked to the gills have no place in Little Tim's cosmography. 1954 ‘N. Blake’ Whisper in Gloom i. i. 17 They let him coke himself up for the occasion. |
| 1967 C. Drummond Death at Furlong Post iv. 40, I want a solo cokey who knows guns. |
▸
coke-head n. slang (
orig. U.S.) an addict or habitual user of cocaine.
| 1923 N. Anderson Hobo ii. v. 67 Those who are transient are often cocaine users who are able to do without the drug for considerable periods of time. Not infrequently ‘*coke heads’ or ‘snow-birds’ are found among the hobo workers. 2002 Publishers Weekly 9 Dec. 58/2 His father, an alcoholic and cokehead..drifts from one dead-end job to another. |
▪ III. coke, v.1 (
kəʊk)
[f. coke n.1] 1. trans. To convert (coal) into coke.
| 1804 Phil. Trans. XCIV. 304 The heat..appears to have..coaked beds of coal. a 1845 Hood Ode to R. Wilson. Poor Nature..is stoked, coked, smoked, and almost choked. 1884 Cassell's Fam. Mag. Mar. 203/1 Two days are sufficient to ‘coke’ the coal. |
b. Erroneously said of wood.
| 1816 Scott Antiq. xviii, The furnace in which the wood was deposited in order to its being coked or charred. |
2. intr. (for
refl.) Of coal: To turn into coke.
| 1884 E. Ingersoll in Harper's Mag. May 876/1 It will not coke. |
▪ IV. coke obs. form of
cock,
colk,
cook.
▪ V. coke, colker dial. f. calk,
calker.