cook someone's goose

Idioms and Phrases

Ruin someone, upset someone's plans. For example, He thinks he'll get away with stealing my idea, but I'm going to cook his goose . The origin of this phrase has been lost, but there are numerous fanciful theories; one concerns a besieged town that displayed a goose to show it had enough food, causing the attackers to set it on fire. The first recorded use of this colloquial phrase was in 1851.

Related Words

• get