Other forms: corks
A cork is the fat plug you pull out of a wine bottle, and cork is the light springy stuff it is made of. The pop as it comes free, the corkscrew going in, the noticeboard on the office wall stuck full of pins.
The material is the bark of the cork oak, cut off the living tree without killing it; it floats, springs back when you squeeze it and holds a pin, which is why it turns up in floors, coasters, noticeboards and fishing floats. To cork a bottle is to close it with one. Corked wine is not wine with a cork in it but wine spoiled by a bad cork, smelling of damp cardboard, and you are entitled to send it back. Screw caps have taken over many bottles, and the plastic imitations still get called corks.
1nouncorkThe plug that seals a bottle, especially a wine bottle.
“The cork came out with a soft pop.”
Patternpull / pop the cork · a wine cork · put the cork back in · corked
synonyms: stopper, bung
2nounmaterialThe light springy bark of the cork oak, used for stoppers, boards and flooring.
“The kitchen floor is cork, warm underfoot and quiet.”
3verbcloseTo close a bottle with a cork.
“He corked the bottle and put it back in the rack.”
CORK → the POP when it flies out
Twist the top of the bottle and the cork shoots out with a pop and hits the ceiling.
Middle English cork meant oak bark, and English took it from Middle Dutch curc, which came either from Spanish corcho or from old Spanish alcorque, a cork sole. It is a doublet of cortex, the word for an outer layer, so the same idea reached English twice by different roads. Both are, at heart, the skin of a tree.
Spanish
corcho
Middle Dutch
curc
Middle English
cork
English, today
cork
From Middle English cork, from Middle Dutch curc, from Spanish corcho. From Middle English cork (“oak bark, cork”), from Middle Dutch curc (“cork (material or object)”), either from Spanish corcho (“cork (material or object)”) (also corcha or corche) or from osp alcorque (“cork sole”). a doublet of cortex.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA