Idiom Breakdown

cook someone's goose

//ˈkʊk ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈɡuːs/ / /ˈkʊk ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈɡus//

INFORMAL Geese

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Definition

To spoil one's plans or hope of success.

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Various folk etymologies have been suggested, but the true etymology remains unknown.

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"I like this Goose Lake country better than any I've seen east of the Cascade range, and if some mishap don't cook my goose, I hope to give you a good account of it, if not of myself."
"[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.]"
"A strange, awkward thought! Had Fleur cooked her own goose by trying to make too sure?"
""Well," remarked Dobbie succinctly, "that rather cooks his goose, doesn't it?""
""I am afraid Bill [William Joseph Donovan] is rapidly cooking his own goose by lobbying," Dykes recorded on 4 April. "[Walter Bedell] Smith is getting completely fed up with [Donovan].""
"Well I don't care if it's a thing or a mammal or a skunk, he can't sleep on our money. I'll cook that mammal's goose!"
"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 him cook his own goose."
"One false step can cook your goose for good. Before you know it, there's such a big stink that it's smeared all over the newspapers."

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