1.  cocktail(n = noun.food) Array - a short mixed drink; Array
is a kind of mixed drink
has particulars: bloody mary, bullshot, daiquiri, rum cocktail, gimlet, grasshopper, harvey wallbanger, manhattan, margarita, martini, gin and it, old fashioned, pink lady, sazerac, screwdriver, sidecar, sour, stinger, planter's punch, white russian

2.  cocktail(n = noun.food) Array - an appetizer served as a first course at a meal; Array
is a kind of appetiser, appetizer, starter
has particulars: fruit cocktail, crab cocktail, shrimp cocktail

1.  A beverage made of brandy, whisky, or gin, iced, flavored, and sweetened. [1913 Webster]

2.  A horse, not of pure breed, but having only one eighth or one sixteenth impure blood in his veins. Darwin. [1913 Webster]

3.  A mean, half-hearted fellow; a coward. [1913 Webster]
"It was in the second affair that poor little Barney showed he was a cocktail." [1913 Webster]

4.  A species of rove beetle; -- so called from its habit of elevating the tail. [1913 Webster]

cocktail, n.
1 a usu. alcoholic drink made by mixing various spirits, fruit juices, etc.
2 a dish of mixed ingredients (fruit cocktail; shellfish cocktail).
3 any hybrid mixture.

Idiom:
cocktail dress a usu. short evening dress suitable for wearing at a drinks party. cocktail stick a small pointed stick for serving an olive, cherry, small sausage, etc.

Etymology:
orig. unkn.: cf. earlier sense 'docked horse' f. COCK(1): the connection is unclear

N  drunkenness, intemperance, drinking, inebriety, inebriation, ebriety, ebriosity, insobriety, intoxication, temulency, bibacity, wine bibbing, comtation, potation, deep potations, bacchanals, bacchanalia, libations, bender, oinomania, dipsomania, delirium tremens, alcohol, alcoholism, mania a potu, drink, alcoholic drinks, blue ruin, grog, port wine, punch, punch bowl, cup, rosy wine, flowing bowl, drop, drop too much, dram, beer, aguardiente, apple brandy, applejack, brandy, brandy smash, chain lightning, champagne, cocktail, gin, ginsling, highball, peg, rum, rye, schnapps, sherry, sling, uisquebaugh, usquebaugh, whisky, xeres, drunkard, sot, toper, tippler, bibber, wine-bibber, lush, hard drinker, gin drinker, dram drinker, soaker, sponge, tun, love pot, toss pot, thirsty soul, reveler, carouser, Bacchanal, Bacchanalian, Bacchal, Bacchante, devotee to Bacchus, bum, guzzler, tavern haunter, drunk, tipsy, intoxicated, inebrious, inebriate, inebriated, in one's cups, in a state of intoxication, temulent, temulentive, bombed, smashed, fuddled, mellow, cut, boozy, fou, fresh, merry, elevated, flustered, disguised, groggy, beery, top-heavy, potvaliant, glorious, potulent, squiffy, overcome, overtaken, whittled, screwed, tight, primed, corned, raddled, sewed up, lushy, nappy, muddled, muzzy, obfuscated, maudlin, crapulous, dead drunk, woozy, buzzed, flush, flushed, inter pocula, in liquor, the worse for liquor, having had a drop too much, half seas over, three sheets in the wind, three sheets to the wind, under the table, drunk as a lord, drunk as a skunk, drunk as a piper, drunk as a fiddler, drunk as Chloe, drunk as an owl, drunk as David's sow, drunk as a wheelbarrow, drunken, bibacious, sottish, given to drink, addicted to drink, addicted to the bottle, toping, nunc est bibendum, Bacchus ever fair and young, drink down all unkindness, O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to.

atomic cocktail, brompton cocktail, brompton's cocktail, cocktail dress, cocktail lounge, cocktail party, cocktail sauce, cocktail shaker, cocktail table, crab cocktail, drug cocktail, fruit cocktail, molotov cocktail, rum cocktail, shrimp cocktail