corker
noun; British informal

- Someone or something extremely good — especially an idea, performance or story

- A striking or outstanding person or thing

- A remark or argument that decisively ends a discussion

- A person or machine that puts corks into bottles

Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Webster’s New World College Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

Corker was recorded in slang in 1837, meaning an unanswerable fact or argument: something that settled a discussion. By the 1880s, it could also describe something astonishing or exceptionally good.

The connection with cork is probable but not certain. One persuasive explanation imagines an argument being stopped as firmly as a bottle is closed with a cork. Once nothing further could be added, the decisive comment became a corker. From there, the word moved naturally from “conclusive” to “remarkable”

Curiously, the literal sense—a person or machine that inserts corks—appears to have been recorded later.

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THE BARK THAT SURVIVES

Peeling the bark from most trees is an excellent way to kill them. A cork oak, however, can survive it.

Its unusually thick outer bark can be removed without cutting into the living tissue beneath. Skilled workers use axes to open and lift large curved slabs, leaving a reddish trunk that gradually covers itself again.

There’s no quick harvest. A cork oak must usually grow for about 25 years before its bark is removed for the first time. That first rough crop isn’t good enough for wine stoppers. Neither, generally, is the second. Only after another cycle does the bark develop the quality needed for natural corks.

Once established, the tree can be harvested roughly every nine years. The year is often painted on the trunk so that nobody needs to rely on memory. A mature tree may provide bark repeatedly over a working life measured in generations.

Cork’s microscopic structure explains its usefulness. It consists of millions of tiny, sealed cells filled largely with air. This makes it light, springy, insulating and almost impermeable—qualities appreciated not only by winemakers but also by builders, designers and spacecraft engineers.

What looks like a small disposable stopper is therefore the product of remarkable patience.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

beaut, beauty, CORKER, cracker, doozy, gem, humdinger, marvel, peach, ripper

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“That final story was a real CORKER—I’m still laughing about it.”

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