Language: en
Meaning: (idiomatic,informal)Tospoilone'splansorhopeofsuccess.Synonyms:(rare)do someone's goose,drive a coach and horses through,upset the applecart;see alsoThesaurus:spoil1867September 28, Joseph Wasson, “Colonel[George] Crook’s Campaign”, inPeter Cozzens, editor,Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 1865–1890: The Wars for the Pacific Northwest, volume 2, Mechanicsburg, Pa.:Stackpole Books, published2002,→ISBN, part 1 (The Snake-Paiute War and after, 1866–72),page63:I like this Goose Lake country better than any I've seen east of the Cascade range, and if some mishap don'tcookmygoose, I hope to give you a good account of it, if not of myself.[1918May 2,John Terraine, quotingFrederick Scott Oliver, “The Gambler’s Fling”, inThe Great War(Wordsworth Military Library), Ware, Hertfordshire:Wordsworth Editions, published1997,→ISBN,page156:[W]hen is it reasonable to think that the Americans will be able to put in that immense army of three millions, fully equipped, each man with a hair mattress, a hot-water bottle, a gramophone, and a medicine chest, which they tell us will get to Berlin and ‘cook the goose’ of the Kaiser? [In a letter from F. S. Oliver to his brother.]]1921September,John Galsworthy, “The Dark Tune”, inTo Let, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.:Charles Scribner’s Sons,→OCLC, part III,page284:A strange, awkward thought! Had Fleurcookedher owngooseby trying to make too sure?1931,Anthony Gilbert[pseudonym; Lucy Beatrice Malleson], chapter6, inThe Case against Andrew Fane, London:W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co.,→OCLC; republished London: The Murder Room,2004,→ISBN, section 1:"Well," remarked Dobbie succinctly, "that rathercookshisgoose, doesn't it?"1941April 4, D[aniel]K. R. Crosswell, quotingVivian Dykes, “Forging the Mold”, inBeetle: The Life of Walter Bedell Smith(American Warriors), Lexington, Ky.:University of Kentucky Press, published2010,→ISBN, part 3 (The Towering Figure—George C. Marshall),page254:"I am afraid Bill [William Joseph Donovan] is rapidlycookinghis owngooseby lobbying," Dykes recorded on 4 April. "[Walter Bedell] Smithis getting completely fed up with [Donovan]."1943October,Robert McCloskey, “The Case of the Sensational Scent”, inHomer Price, New York, N.Y.:Viking Press,→OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, December 1966,→OCLC,page18:Well I don't care if it's a thing or a mammal or a skunk, he can't sleep on our money. I'llcookthat mammal'sgoose!1984, Donald Maddox, “Antipathiquelin and the Rhetoric of Torts”, inSemiotics of Deceit: ThePathelinEra[…], Lewisburg, Pa.:Bucknell University Press; Cranbury, N.J.; London:Associated University Presses,→ISBN,page95:To express his antipathy, the lawyer manipulates the judicial process, its language and technicalities, to show that if he was formerly unprepared to serve Guillaume the promised feast, he is now eager to help himcookhisowngoose.1987,Sholem Aleichem[pseudonym; Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich], “[The Railway Stories]The Man from Buenos Aires”, inHillel Halkin, transl.,Tevye the Dairyman and The Railway Stories(Library of Yiddish Classics), New York, N.Y.:Schocken Books,→ISBN; republished New York, N.Y.: Schocken Books,[2008?],→ISBN,page172:One false step cancookyourgoosefor good. Before you know it, there's such a big stink that it's smeared all over the newspapers.
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