v. 1
To be uncomfortably hot.
Look at that poor dog shut up in that car on a day like today - it must be cooking in there.
v. 2
To prepare food for eating, typically by heating it, combining it with other ingredients, seasoning it, preparing it for serving, etc.
I'm cooking bangers and mash.
v. 3
To apply heat to food in the course of preparing it, particularly in a way that transforms it rather than simply making it warmer.
n. 1
A person who prepares food.
I'm a terrible cook, so I eat a lot of frozen dinners.

Related words

Word family: cookery cookie cookroom cookshack cooktop cookware cooker cooking
Phrases: cook up line cook cook out cold cook pastry cook short-order cook cook someone's goose cook-off
Is a kind of: concoct contrive devise make-up plan

Forms

Plural: cooks → chefs, cookers, cook-offs, jazzes…
Past participle: cooked
e.g. cooked → falsified, fudged, manipulated, faked…

fudge "Get out!" "What the fudge! Are you kidding me?"
misrepresent Journalists need to be careful not to misrepresent information.
wangle Watch me wangle an invitation out of her.
ready I will see to it that everything is ready in time.
bake I'm going to bake a cake for Tom's birthday party.
fry Mum's going to fry us some sprats for tea tonight.

Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.

2 letters: do¹
3 letters: fix¹, fry¹
4 letters: make¹, play¹, born¹, fake¹, jazz¹, chef¹, bake¹, boil¹, stew¹, hurl¹
5 letters: ready², grill¹, fudge¹, fling¹
6 letters: cooker², seethe¹, wangle²
7 letters: prepare², falsify³
10 letters: manipulate⁴
12 letters: misrepresent⁴, magirologist

The small number after each word is its number of syllables (ready² = 2 syllables).