Meaning
To falsify or fraudulently alter an organization's financial records, typically to hide losses, inflate profits, or evade tax; by extension, to doctor any written account or record of events so that it misleads. Journalistic and informal-to-neutral register; formal reporting prefers falsify accounts or accounting fraud. Normally reserved for financial records rather than documents in general. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Cook has meant to present something in a surreptitiously altered form since the 1600s: the earliest citation in the OED is the Earl of Strafford in 1636 - 'The Proof was once clear, however they have cook'd it since' - and Etymonline dates this figurative sense to the 1630s, the allusion being transformation, as raw ingredients become a meal. Accounts were an early target: Tobias Smollett's Peregrine Pickle (1751) refers to falsified printed accounts, artfully cooked up. The exact wording cook the books is far later - Etymonline attests it by 1954 - and it surged after the 1990s corporate fraud scandals made the 1960s euphemism creative accounting sound too gentle; Ian Griffiths' 1986 book on the subject played on the metaphor with its talk of accounts cooked or completely roasted.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- cook the accounts
- cook up the accounts
- cooking the books
Usage Examples
- Auditors found that managers had cooked the books for years, hiding losses behind fake invoices and inflated sales.
- The treasurer was fired after she cooked the accounts to cover the missing funds from the annual fundraiser.
- Prosecutors say the founders cooked the books to lure investors, overstating revenue in every quarterly filing.