cook someone's goose
Syllables: cook some·one's goose/ˈkʊk ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈɡuːs/US/ˈkʊk ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈɡus/
cook someone's goose verb: to spoil one's plans or hope of success.
Verb
cook someone's goose (third-person singular simple present cooks someone's goose, present participle cooking someone's goose, simple past and past participle cooked someone's goose)
- To spoil one's plans or hope of success.
- I like this Goose Lake country better than any I've seen east of the Cascade range, and if some mishap don't cook my goose, I hope to give you a good account of it, if not of myself.1867 September 28, Joseph Wasson, “Colonel [George] Crook’s Campaign”, in Peter Cozzens, editor, Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 1865–1890: The Wars for the Pacific Northwest, volume 2...
- [W]hen is it reasonable to think that the Americans will be able to put in that immense army of three millions, fully equipped, each man with a hair mattress, a hot-water bottle, a gramophone, and a medicine chest, which they tell us will get to Berlin and ‘cook the goose’ of the Kaiser? [In a...[1918 May 2, John Terraine, quoting Frederick Scott Oliver, “The Gambler’s Fling”, in The Great War (Wordsworth Military Library), Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, published 1997, →ISBN...
- Synonyms:
- do someone's goose, drive a coach and horses through, upset the applecart, ball up, blight, bumble, botch, bugger up, bungle, contaminate
Synonyms of cook someone's goose
- drive a coach and horses through
- upset the applecart
- blight
- bumble
- botch
- bugger up
- bungle
- contaminate
- corrupt
- crab
25 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of cook someone's goose
| third-person singular present | cooks someone's goose |
|---|---|
| present participle | cooking someone's goose |
| past participle | cooked someone's goose |
| past | cooked someone's goose |
Origin of cook someone's goose
Various folk etymologies have been suggested, but the true etymology remains unknown.
Questions about cook someone's goose
- What does cook someone's goose mean?
- Cook someone's goose means to spoil one's plans or hope of success.
- What part of speech is cook someone's goose?
- Cook someone's goose is a verb.
- How do you pronounce cook someone's goose?
- Cook someone's goose is pronounced /ˈkʊk ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈɡuːs/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of cook someone's goose?
- The past tense of cook someone's goose is cooked someone's goose.
Words near cook someone's goose in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cook someone's goose (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cook someone's goose.wav.
Cite this entry: “cook someone's goose.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cook_someone%27s_goose. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.