decoct

English

Etymology

From Latin decoquō (“I boil down”), from de- + coquō (“I cook”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈkɒkt/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /dəˈkɑkt/

Verb

decoct (third-person singular simple present decocts, present participle decocting, simple past and past participle decocted)

1. (cooking) To make an infusion.
2. (cooking) To reduce, or concentrate by boiling down.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IV, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 54:

     Her ambition had hitherto been confined to being the best of wives,—so she scolded the servants—opened no book but her book of receipts—made soup without meat—decocted cowslips, parsneps, currants, and gooseberries, which, if not good wine, were very tolerable vinegar

3. (figurative) To heat as if by boiling.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v], page 80, column 1:

     Can ſodden Water, / A Drench for ſur-reyn’d Iades, their Barly broth, / Decoct their cold blood to ſuch valiant heat?

4. (figurative) To reduce or diminish.
   • 1426 [c. 1330], Guillaume de Deguileville, translated by John Lydgate, edited by F. J. Furnivall, The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & co., translation of Le pèlerinage de la vie humaine (in Middle French), published 1904, page 655:

     […] and that rednesse / may neuere tournë to whiteness / (as clerkës sayn,) but yef so be / it be decoct by charyte, […]

     […] and that redness / may never turn to whiteness / (as clerics say), but if it does, / it will be decocted by Charity, […]

5. To digest in the stomach.
   • a. 1626, Sir John Davies, The Original, Nature, and Immortality of the Soul, R. & A. Foulis, published 1759, page 46:

     Here ſhe [the body] attracts, and there ſhe doth retain; / There ſhe decocts, and doth the food prepare; / There ſhe diſtributes it to ev’ry vein, / There ſhe expels what ſhe may fitly ſpare.

6. (transitive) To devise.

Related terms

• decoction