cork

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A bottle stopper made from this or any other material.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

kawrk

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈkɔɹk

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

A bottle stopper made from this or any other material.
Outer bark of the cork oak; used for stoppers for bottles etc.
The phellem of the cork oak, used for making bottle stoppers, flotation devices, and insulation material.
botany
Outer tissue of bark; a protective layer of dead cells
A small float usually made of cork; attached to a fishing line
An angling float, also traditionally made of oak cork.

verb

transitiveAustralia
To injure through a blow; to induce a haematoma.
transitive
To block (a street) illegally, to allow a protest or other activity to take place without traffic.
Stuff with cork
“The baseball player stuffed his bat with cork to make it lighter.”
transitive
To seal or stop up, especially with a cork stopper.
transitive
To blacken (as) with a burnt cork.
Close a bottle with a cork

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency: Moderately Common
Typical Use: General and technical use

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A bottle stopper made from this or any other material.

Used this way, cork is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: Matter-of-fact
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

bobber , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Outer / phellem

cork cambium

Port / principal

cork city

Other combinations

cork oakcrown corkwest corkarmstrong corklord corkcork examiner

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

cork upverbCompound term
Close a bottle with a cork.
cork treenounCompound term
Deciduous tree of China and Manchuria having a turpentine aroma and handsome compound leaves turning yellow in autumn and deeply fissured corky bark.
cork oaknounCompound term
Medium-sized evergreen oak of southern Europe and northern Africa having thick corky bark that is periodically stripped to yield commercial cork.
cork jacketnounCompound term
Life preserver consisting of a sleeveless jacket of buoyant or inflatable design.
chinese cork oaknounCompound term
Medium to large deciduous tree of China, Japan, and Korea having thick corky bark.
bottle corknounCompound term
The plug in the mouth of a bottle (especially a wine bottle).

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

corkscrewnounRelated term
A bottle opener that pulls corks.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: to injure through a blow

uncorkRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.