Word.ws English Dictionary

cookie licking

cookie licking noun: the act of claiming a project or idea for oneself, discouraging others from working on it, but then never finishing it.

Noun

cookie licking (uncountable)

  1. The act of claiming a project or idea for oneself, discouraging others from working on it, but then never finishing it.
    • Suppose there is a list of items to be done, say, tasks or projects or topics for investigation. Somebody signals interest in a particular project, thereby making it unavailable for others to work on. If the person never actually starts working on the project, then that person is accused of...2009 December 1, Raymond Chen, “Microspeak: Cookie licking”, in The Old New Thing, archived from the original on 02 Oct 2024
    • Allow people to act out in those ways, and you're guaranteeing that more counterproductive cookie-licking ways will emerge as you promote talent through the ranks. Left unchecked, advanced cookie-licking could include the following organizational poison: […]2011 October 10, Kris Dunn, “Attack of the Cookie-Lickers”, in CFO, archived from the original on 01 Mar 2024

Questions about cookie licking

What does cookie licking mean?
Cookie licking means the act of claiming a project or idea for oneself, discouraging others from working on it, but then never finishing it.
What part of speech is cookie licking?
Cookie licking is a noun.

Words near cookie licking in the dictionary

  1. cookie grabbers
  2. cookie hole
  3. cookie holes
  4. cookie jar
  5. cookie jars
  6. cookie licking
  7. cookie monster
  8. cookie pop
  9. cookie pops
  10. cookie press
  11. cookie presses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cookie licking (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.

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Cite this entry: “cookie licking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cookie_licking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.