English · Idiom Candidate

cook someone's goose

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Also seen as: cook one’s goose

Sense 1

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

to ruin someone's plans or chances

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

làm hỏng kế hoạch hoặc cơ hội của ai đó

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: cook a goose

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

At the time of the lobby revolt, ‘ No one could have been in any doubt that if they went over to [the rebel papers']side, they would cook their goose with Number Ten.’

This will cook Arthur's goose.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Sense 2

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

to kill or ruin a person.—North.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

giết hoặc làm hư một người

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1874 (Victorian)

Where it’s used: Origin British & Irish English

Sources & notes

Historical definition reproduced from Hotten’s The Slang Dictionary (1874, public domain; Project Gutenberg #42108, retrieved 2026-07-31). Reflects the attitudes of its era.

Topics: Ducks & geese Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “cook someone's goose” mean?

to ruin someone's plans or chances Literally: cook a goose

Is “cook someone's goose” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.