cookie

American  

[kook-ee] / ˈkʊk i /

Sometimes cooky

noun

cookies plural

1. a small, usually round and flat cake, the size of an individual portion, made from stiff, sweetened dough, and baked.

2. Informal. dear; sweetheart (a term of address, usually connoting affection).

3. Slang.

   1. a person, usually of a specified character or type.

      a smart cookie;

      a tough cookie.

   2. an alluring young woman.

4. Also called browser cookie.  Also called http cookie;.  Digital Technology. a file or segment of data that identifies a unique user over time and across interactions with a website, sent by the web server through a browser, stored on a user’s hard drive, and sent back to the server each time the browser requests a web page.

   Your browser will run more efficiently after you clear the cache and cookies.

5. South Atlantic States (chiefly North Carolina). a doughnut.

6. Scot. a bun.

---

verb (used with object)

cookied, cookieing, cookying

1. Digital Technology. to assign a cookie or cookies to (a website user).

   I'm not really comfortable being cookied all the time.

idioms

1. toss / spill one's cookies, to vomit.

cookie British  

/ ˈkʊkɪ /

noun

1. Also called (in Britain and certain other countries): biscuit.  a small flat dry sweet or plain cake of many varieties, baked from a dough

2. a Scot word for bun

3. informal a person

   smart cookie

4. computing a piece of data downloaded to a computer by a website, containing details of the preferences of that computer's user which identify the user when revisiting that website

5. informal matters are inevitably or unalterably so

---

cookie Scientific  

/ kk′ē /

1. A collection of information, usually including a username and the current date and time, stored on the local computer of a person using the World Wide Web, used chiefly by websites to identify users who have previously registered or visited the site. Cookies are used to relate one computer transaction to a later one.

---

cookie More Idioms  

1. see hand in the till (cookie jar); that's how the ball bounces (cookie crumbles); toss one's cookies.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cookies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cookie

First recorded in 1750–55; from Dutch koekie, dialectal variant of koekje, equivalent to koek “biscuit, cake” + -je diminutive suffix; see origin at cake

Explanation

A cookie is a round, sweet baked good that's often eaten with a glass of milk. You might bake three dozen cookies to sell at your swim team's bake sale. In Britain, it's a biscuit, and in the US it's a cookie. In both cases, it's a small cake that's baked on a cookie sheet. Your favorite cookies might be chocolate chip — or maybe you're more of an oatmeal raisin cookie type. When you see cookie in the context of computers, it means a bit of data that's sent from a website to your browser. This type of cookie helps your computer remember passwords and web pages it's visited.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cookie cookies cookied

According to folks online, the final treat is meant to taste like cookie dough — but healthier.

From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2026

About the size of a cookie, each array contains eight quartz corner cube prisms mounted inside a dome shaped aluminum frame.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 14, 2026

The group does not sell direct to consumers but provides cocoa and chocolate preparations to major firms around the world, including Hershey, Mondelez and Nestlé as well as cake, cookie and ice cream makers.

From Barron's ● Jul. 9, 2026

She landed a Small Business Administration loan — even with zero revenue at first — and grew to $250,000 in cookie sales in the first year.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026

Couldn’t Caterpillar have given Chicken the idea for a puzzle cookie without breaking her own?

From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn

It has cookie dough, because sometimes hospitality means baking twelve cookies for friends, and sometimes it means baking two for yourself while standing barefoot in the kitchen.

From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2026

A few of the other men pooled together instant noodles, chips, cookies and coffee to last him at least his first week there, until Wilber could purchase his own food.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026

We dreamed up the microchip and we gave the world chocolate-chip cookies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026

Packed with cookies, brownies, old-school sprinkle cakes or lemon drizzle, they are usually found in front gardens, on driveways or by the roadside.

From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026

Pumpkins held caramel boxes filled with wiggly animal cookies.

From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton

Vonetta must have heard Uncle’s name and came out into the living room, her hands and lips all cookied up.

From "P.S. Be Eleven" by Rita Williams-Garcia

Related Words

• biscuit
• wafer