Cook(ing)

The word (cook, n.) 'a person whose occupation is the preparing and cooking of food' could be mistaken as an Old English word deriving from the many Germanic relatives like the Old Saxon kok and the Old German koh. In fact, "Old English cōc (with long stem vowel) shows a later independent borrowing from Latin at a time after the lengthening of original short vowels in open syllables (i.e. cōcus for earlier cocus)" (Oxford English Dictionary.) This shows that the lengthening of vowels is a valuable marker of aging a word in a particular language to its original loan. It is also an expression of Latin's influence on Old English, being the language of prestige during that time.  In the Middle English period, it was first used as a verb, (cook, v.).

This word first showed up as a translation from Latin in Chrodegang of Metz's Regula Canonicorum, as the plural cocas (more often spelled cocus). It then reappeared in the 13th century in Laymon's Brut in the sentence, "Weoren in þeos kinges cuchene twa hundred cokes."This translates to 'Were in this king's kitchen two hundred cooks', and this form of the word lasted into the 17th century. Jump ahead one hundred years and you'll find it spelled the modern way for the first time (though it does divert from this spelling following this instance), in the sentence, "I haue be cook in hir kichyne and þe couent serued." The translation for that is 'I have been cook in her kitchen and the convent served.' Many spellings exist simultaneously until the 1600s, such as: cok, coque, koke, kooke, and cooke. Then, the standardization movement settled on cook, after which the spelling remains stable in standard English (except for northern and Scottish variations).

Throughout all this time, the meaning stayed the same as both a noun and a verb. The verb started around the year 1400 and has evolved with the then-current and now-current trends in morphology and spelling since that time.

As you can see from the spelling above, the morphology changes significantly during the first three periods of English. In Old English, the -as/-us ending is a mark of a plural noun, either nominative or accusative. As the root stays the same, we move on to the simplified plural marker for nouns, which was -es in the Middle English period, and -(e)s by the Modern English period. In Middle English the modern form of cook appears, reflecting the loss of case endings and increase in the analytic nature of English during and beyond this time.

Although cooking, the present participle/progressive verb, follows the same morphological and spelling trends as cook, it didn't appear in the language until Middle English, through conversion. The actual -ing ending shows up in relation to other words during that same Middle English period. The noun cooking appears first, and then it is applied to cooking as a verb, both in the Early Modern English period.

While the initial introduction of cook to the English language was the result of external change in its interaction with Latin, it does date back to Old English, and most of the following changes were internal ones which occurred as a pattern throughout the language.

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Oxford English Dictionary. "Cook, n." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cook_n1?tab=meaning_and_use#8306705

Oxford English Dictionary. "Cook, v." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cook_v1?tab=meaning_and_use#8307780

Oxford English Dictionary. "Cooking, n." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cooking_n?tab=meaning_and_use#8309965

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