cocktail Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a short mixed drink
  2. noun an appetizer served as a first course at a meal

WordNet

Cock"tail` noun
Definitions
  1. A beverage made of brandy, whisky, or gin, iced, flavored, and sweetened. U. S.
  2. (Stock Breeding) A horse, not of pure breed, but having only one eighth or one sixteenth impure blood in his veins. Darwin.
  3. A mean, half-hearted fellow; a coward. Slang, Eng.
    It was in the second affair that poor little Barney showed he was a cocktail. Thackeray.
  4. (Zoöl.) A species of rove beetle; -- so called from its habit of elevating the tail.

Webster 1913