cocktail

Etymology

Early 17th century (in the sense of a non-thoroughbred horse), from cock (“male bird”) + tail. Non-thoroughbred racehorses were considered "cock-tailed" due to their docked tails, leading to the term "cocktail" (sense 1) for an adulterated spirit.

noun

1. A mixed alcoholic beverage.
   They visited a bar noted for its wide range of cocktails.
   … a certain candidate has placed in his account of Loss and Gain, the following items:-- LOSS … 411 glasses bitters[,] 25 do. cock-tail 1806-05-06, “Rum! Rum! Rum!”, in Balance and Columbian Repository, volume v, number 18, New York: Hudson, page 142
   Cock tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it is vulgarly called 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. 1806-05-13, “Communication”, in Balance and Columbian Repository, volume v, number 19, New York: Hudson, page 146
   Deane opened the fray by declaring, à propos of dinners, that the only proper way to create a cocktail of the genus Martini was to add a half-spoonful of sherry after the other ingredients had been satisfactorily mixed, if at all. 1904, Charlotte Bryson Taylor, “Chapter VI”, in In the Dwellings of the Wilderness
   He moved majestically down to mix the cocktails. As he chipped ice, as he squeezed oranges, as he collected vast stores of bottles, glasses, and spoons at the sink in the pantry, he felt as authoritative as the bartender at Healey Hanson's saloon. 1922, Sinclair Lewis, “Chapter 8”, in Babbitt
   The cocktail in Britain is a rigidly-defined social institution: each has its own particular meaning—the G & T is the alcoholic equivalent of the interview suit; Pernod and black is an alternative to glue sniffing for repentant trendies, etc. 2011, Mark Polonsky et al., USSR: From an Original Idea by Karl Marx, page 32
2. (by extension) A mixture of other substances or things.
   Scientists found a cocktail of pollutants in the river downstream from the chemical factory.
   a cocktail of illegal drugs
   Motor vehicles, for example, emit a cocktail of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, particulates, heavy metals and (for diesel) sulphur dioxide. 2013, Andrew Farmer, Managing Environmental Pollution, Routledge, page 22
   This chapter examines how the concurrent phenomena of an assertive monarch, persistent civil war, and economic change affected the political activities of townspeople in three ways: in the relationship between the ‘urban sector’ and the English polity, in the complexion of municipal internal politics, and in the nature of urban participation in the civil wars of 1469–71. In all three of these fields, the particular cocktail of circumstances present in the 1460s encouraged a wide variety of townspeople to become invested emotionally and materially in the course of national politics, as they had not been during much of the 1450s. 2019, Eliza Hartrich, “Edward IV, the Earl of Warwick, and a Changing Urban Sector, 1461–71”, in Politics and the Urban Sector in Fifteenth-Century England, 1413–1471, Oxford University Press, page 181
   Terry Gourvish, the lead author if the authorised commercial history of BR, described the new BTC structure thus: "The conclusion must be that the combination of a few undynamic railwaymen, underpaid full-timers (Commission and General Staff) and poorly-paid part-time businessmen was not a very potent managerial cocktail." March 8 2023, David Clough, “The long road that led to Beeching”, in RAIL, page 38
3. A horse, not of pure breed, but having only one eighth or one sixteenth impure blood in its veins.
   A “cock-tail” is a horse not purely bred, but with only one-eighth or one-sixteenth impure blood in his veins 1868, Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, volume ii, John Murray, page 11
4. (UK, slang, dated) A mean, half-hearted fellow.
5. A species of rove beetle, so called from its habit of elevating the tail.

adj

1. (obsolete) Ostentatiously lacking in manners.
   It looks very cocktail to be seen riding through the streets of London in a scarlet coat ; 1830, Sporting Magazine
   The Prince had nothing particular about him but a monstrous smart whip with a gold stag for a handle, which was pronounced a very cocktail looking instrument by the Leicestershire farmers, with whom His Serene Highness is no favorite 1840, The Sporting magazine
   She always goes about with a brace of loaded revolvers in her belt!! Very cocktail and no occasion for it 2008, Christine Kelly, Mrs Duberly's War: Journal and Letters from the Crimea, 1854-6

verb

1. (transitive) To adulterate (fuel, etc.) by mixing in other substances.
2. (transitive) To treat (a person) to cocktails.
   He dined and cocktailed her at the most exclusive bars and restaurants.