cocktail
/ˈkɒkteɪl
/- The fight came at the end of a night's clubbing during which the prince is reported to have drunk vodka cocktails, tequila and beer.
- Just as my fellow students were intimidated by formal grammar, a lot of otherwise sophisticated people are intimidated by spirits, cocktails and mixed drinks.
- Spring is the time in her restaurant for rum drinks, cocktails with fruit and drinks with fizz.
- The company is focusing on getting its cocktail, a mixture of three drugs, to market.
- A well-known technique is to give horses a cocktail of substances from the same family of drugs.
- A cocktail of substances is now burning from several storage containers, but fire authorities say the blaze is well under control.
- On the menu are such delights of Olde England: prawn cocktail, steak Diane and banana flambé
- A tempting array of starters ranged from melon, garlic bread and prawn cocktail through to pasta dishes which could have been a main course in themselves.
- Her preferences seem to rest mainly on seafood cocktails, shrimp and tilapia - a fish I normally find to be insipid stuff.
Origin
Early 17th century: from cock1 + tail1. The original use was as an adjective describing a creature with a tail like that of a cock, specifically a horse with a docked tail; hence (because hunters and coach-horses were generally docked) a racehorse which was not a thoroughbred, having a cock-tailed horse in its pedigree (early 19th century). sense 1 (originally US, also early 19th century) is perhaps analogous, from the idea of an adulterated spirit.
The original use of cocktail was as a term to describe a creature with a tail like that of a cock, in particular a horse with a docked tail. Hunting horses and stagecoach horses generally had their tails shortened in this way, which led to the term being applied to a racehorse which was not a thoroughbred but ‘of mixed blood’, with a cock-tailed horse somewhere in its pedigree. It may be that the current sense of an alcoholic drink with a mixture of ingredients, which dates from the early 19th century, comes from this use, though the exact origin of the term is much debated.