cock-a-leekie

American

[kok-uh-lee-kee] / ˌkɒk əˈli ki /

noun

Scottish Cooking.

a soup made with chicken broth, chopped leeks, and sometimes a little oatmeal.

cock-a-leekie British

/ ˌkɒkəˈliːkɪ /

noun

a variant of cockieleekie

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of cock-a-leekie

1765–75; variant of cockie-leekie, equivalent to cock ¹ + -ie + leek + -ie

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

I came home with a thrilling variety, including chicken gumbo, red lentil and cock-a-leekie, which inspired this recipe.

From Washington Post • Mar. 16, 2023

And one of my favorite new-to-me chicken soup variations is Scottish cock-a-leekie.

From New York Times • Jan. 28, 2022

He insisted on cock-a-leekie, which became one of the firm's bestsellers.

From BBC • Feb. 3, 2015

“Well, Nie, the remembrance of that stew, that cock-a-leekie soup, made gipsy-fashion in that lonely island of the ocean, makes me truly hungry to think of even now.”

From O'er Many Lands, on Many Seas by Stables, Gordon

We put up the after-tent, lit the stove, and prepared at once to cook dinner—an Irish stew, made of a rabbit, rent in pieces, and some bacon, with sliced potatoes—a kind of cock-a-leekie.

From The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan by Stables, Gordon

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023