Definition of cocktail

Definitions

cocktail

noun

An alcoholic beverage containing multiple types of liquor

They visited a pub noted for the wide range of cocktails they serve.

- 1806, 13 May 1806 edition of Balance and Columbian Repository, published by Hudson, New York, (first appearance in print):
- : Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters " it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head.
  1. A mixture of other substances.
  "Scientists found a of pollutants in the river downstream of the chemical factory."

Translations:

Dutch: cocktail_(nl)m
French: cocktail^(fr)m
German: Cocktail^(de)n
Spanish: cóctel_{(es, coctel, m}}, {{t-, es)}m

Etymology: (rfe, Editors frequently add alternative etymologies here. "cokstele" is the latest. Are any citable?)Origin uncertain, but possibly:

from the colorfull tail of a cock, as Webster's suggests
from cocktay, the English form of the French coquetier, meaning 'eggcup', in which Antoine Amédée Peychaud, an apothecary, served brandy toddy, brandy toddies mixed with his own invention, Peychaud bitters, at Masonic social gatherings in his pharmacy in New Orleans, c.1795,
from cokstele or cock-stick, a type of weighted stick designed for throwing at cocks as a sport. See w:Cock throwing.

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