The Etymology of Cookie
Cookie is one of the more transparent Americanisms.โโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโ Dutch settlers in 17th-century New Amsterdam (later New York) brought 'koekje,' the diminutive of 'koek' (cake), and English speakers anglicised it as 'cookie' or 'cooky.' The earliest American attestation is 1703. Britain kept calling the same item a 'biscuit,' which is why the food terms diverge to this day. The internet sense is much younger. In 1994 Lou Montulli, an engineer at Netscape, needed a name for the small data tokens his browser would store on behalf of websites. He borrowed 'magic cookie,' a term Unix programmers had used since the 1970s for an opaque packet of data passed between routines. The 'magic cookie' name is itself probably modelled on fortune cookies โ small, sealed packages carrying a hidden message.