The origin is not certain. The OED says it is first attested in 1669. The MED has an earlier attestation in the related sense of "charcoal" in 1430: Middle English coke. This may be the same word as colk (“core”) (perhaps from the notion that coke is the core of the material left after it burning), from Old English *colc (“hole, well”), from Proto-West Germanic *kolk, from Proto-Germanic *kulukaz (“a hollow, depression”), from Proto-Indo-European *g(ʷ)el- (“to swallow, devour; gullet”). If so, cognate with Saterland Frisian Kolk (“maelstrom, depression, whirlpool”), West Frisian kolk (“maelstrom, whirlpool”), Dutch kolk (“maelstrom, vortex, whirlpool”), German Kolk (“pothole”).
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Solid residue from roasting coal in a coke oven; used principally as a fuel and in the production of steel and formerly as a domestic fuel.
The plant should produce approximately 550,000 tons of screened blast furnace coke per year.
This Messrs. Greener and Straite allege they have effected by taking a quantity of lampblack or powdered charcoal, or of powdered coke, and which has been purified, by the action of electricity from sulphur and any other mixtures, and digesting the same in diluted nitro-muriatic acid.1846, editorial staff, “CHEMISTRY”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 2, Issue 13, page 102:
1 more example
At Ho-pi (Hopi) in northern Honan two modern shafts were under construction in 1957-8; but the coal from Ho-pi is expected to be of rather poor quality and so will be mixed with rich coal from P'ing-ting-shan (Pingtingshan) in central Honan for coke making.1963, “The Coal Industry in Mainland China Since 1949”, in The Geographical Journal, volume 129, number 3, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, page 333:
The origin is not certain. The OED says it is first attested in 1669. The MED has an earlier attestation in the related sense of "charcoal" in 1430: Middle English coke. This may be the same word as colk (“core”) (perhaps from the notion that coke is the core of the material left after it burning), from Old English *colc (“hole, well”), from Proto-West Germanic *kolk, from Proto-Germanic *kulukaz (“a hollow, depression”), from Proto-Indo-European *g(ʷ)el- (“to swallow, devour; gullet”). If so, cognate with Saterland Frisian Kolk (“maelstrom, depression, whirlpool”), West Frisian kolk (“maelstrom, whirlpool”), Dutch kolk (“maelstrom, vortex, whirlpool”), German Kolk (“pothole”).
Etymology Clipping of Coca-Cola. See coke (“cola”).
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Informal Cola-based soft drink; (in particular) Coca-Cola.
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Informal A bottle, glass or can of Coca-Cola or a cola-based soft drink.
The waiter came up, and I ordered a Coke for her—she didn't drink—and a Scotch and soda for myself, but the sonuvabitch wouldn't bring me one, so I had a Coke, too.1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 168:
'You have a coke and I'll have a beer and we can talk business.'1958, Franklin Martin, “The Trouble with Mrs. Benton”, in Venus, volume 1, number 1, Garden of Eve Publications, page 16:
Etymology tree Aymarader. Quechua kukabor. Aymara kukabor. Spanish cocabor. English coca Proto-Indo-European *-nós Proto-Indo-European *-iHnos Proto-Italic *-īnos Latin -īnusder. Old French -inbor. Middle English -in English -ine English cocaineclip. English coke Originated circa 1908 in American English as a clipping of cocaine.