What does cooked mean?
Cooked is the past form of the everyday verb 'to cook', describing food that has been heated — boiled, baked, fried, roasted, or otherwise prepared — to make it edible, safe, and flavourful. It works both as a verb ('she cooked dinner') and, more commonly, as an adjective ('a cooked breakfast', 'cooked meat'). Its natural opposite is raw, and cooks often speak of food being 'cooked through' or 'perfectly cooked' when heated just enough. The word carries warm, domestic associations: home meals, family kitchens, and careful preparation. Beyond the kitchen, informal speakers in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand use 'cooked' figuratively to mean exhausted, defeated, or in serious trouble. Simple and familiar, it remains one of the most frequently used words in any language about food.
Past tense and past participle of 'cook': to have prepared food by heating it.
"He had cooked the meal before anyone arrived."
Describing food that has been heated and made ready to eat.
"Serve the dish with cooked greens."
Contrasts most commonly with 'raw'.
In Australia and New Zealand slang, if you're 'cooked', you're not dinner — you're exhausted, in trouble, or hopelessly out of your depth.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cooked
Cooked is simply the past participle of 'cook', a word that entered English from Old Norse 'kokka' (or possibly directly from Latin 'coquere') during the medieval period, replacing older native terms. The Latin root 'coquere' — to cook or ripen by heat — also gave rise to related English words such as 'concoct' and 'decoction', making 'cooked' part of an ancient family of terms linking heat, transformation, and nourishment.
Related word forms
How cooked is actually used
As an adjective, 'cooked' contrasts naturally with 'raw' and 'uncooked'. In informal British, Australian, and New Zealand usage, it also appears figuratively to mean exhausted or doomed ('we're cooked'), though this figurative sense is regional and colloquial.
Easily confused with cooked
'Cocked' means tilted or raised at an angle (as with a hat or a gun), while 'cooked' refers to food that has been heated and prepared.