An archaic or alternate spelling of 'cork', the elastic material from the bark of cork oak trees used for stoppers and insulation.
Middle English spelling variant of 'cork', from Spanish 'corcho' (from Latin 'quercus', oak tree). The spelling 'corke' was common before standardization in the 17th-18th centuries.
Old spellings like 'corke' show how English was still fluid in the Renaissance—there was no single correct spelling yet, so writers spelled phonetically, making historical documents look almost like modern text-speak.
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