Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Splendid; fine.
  • adverb Used as an intensive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Fine; ‘bully.’
  • noun The undesirable effect produced in wines by fungi in the cork.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of cork.
  • adjective informal splendid, enjoyable, bang-up

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective very good

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From corker.]

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Examples

  • WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is angry, environmental officials are worried and BP is trying to accomplish what's being described as corking a gushing soda bottle.

    KVUE - Home 2010

  • 'corking' -- well, it means that a person is all right, don't you know?

    Fernley House Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards 1896

  • Hillbilly, 'corking' the act of placing one's self and one's bicycle in front of oncoming traffic at an intersection so that the group can continue to ooze through an intersection without having to stop.

    BSNYC Road Dairy: Last Stop Portland BikeSnobNYC 2010

  • There was some confusion as to whether we should stop at lights and whether we should do something called "corking," as well as use of some other use of non-competitive smug group ride jargon with which I am mostly unfamiliar, and so I did what I do on most rides, which is simply hide in the back and leave the work or, in this case, decision-making to everybody else.

    BSNYC Road Dairy: Last Stop Portland BikeSnobNYC 2010

  • As the world's vintners move away from natural cork -- which some claim is responsible for "corking" spoilage of up to four percent of all wine -- to synthetic stoppers, animal conservationists are sounding alarm bells about the future of the endangered species that thrive in cork orchards.

    Boing Boing: December 29, 2002 - January 4, 2003 Archives 2002

  • This partial obstruction causes obstructive emphysema, which must be distinguished from compensatory emphysema, in which the ballooning is in the unobstructed lung, because its fellow is wholly out of function through complete "corking" of the main bronchus of the invaded side.

    Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery Chevalier Jackson 1911

  • Earth and Sky mentions the global cooling that can be caused by ash clouds, even a nutbadg theory about thick ice "corking" volcanoes (LMAO!!) yet leaves out any mention of the gaseous emissions of Volcanoes or how the ash works to offset any warming that might be caused by those emissions.

    The Jawa Report Howie 2010

  • Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent "corking" and contamination of wine.

    Boing Boing 2010

  • Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent "corking" and contamination of wine.

    Michael Williams – Master of None 2010

  • Vineyards are testing it against a common grape fungus and wine makers are interested in using the product to prevent "corking".

    IOL Technology 2010

  • The shooting victims were part of a community of antifascist volunteers that formed spontaneously in 2020 to keep the racial justice protesters who filled Portland’s streets day after day safe by redirecting traffic away from marchers, a role known as “corking”, providing them with emergency medical aid and using principles of de-escalation to talk down aggrieved bystanders.

    A gunman killed and injured protesters at a BLM march. Why did police blame the victims? Robert Mackey 2024

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