🗓️ Idiom: Cooking the Books (v)
💬 Meaning
- To deliberately alter financial records to make a company’s finances look better or different than they really are.
- This is usually done to deceive stakeholders, avoid taxes, or hide losses, and it’s considered illegal or unethical.
🧠 Example Sentences
- The CFO was caught cooking the books to hide millions in losses.
- Their financial reports looked suspicious, someone might have cooked the books.
- He went to jail after it was revealed he’d been cooking the books for years.
🏛️ Origin
This idiom dates back to the 19th century. “Cooking” refers to the act of manipulating or tampering with something. In this case, it’s about “cooking” the financial “books” (i.e., accounting records) to make them appear more favorable. It implies dishonesty and hidden manipulation.
📝 Practice Exercises
1. Fill in the blank:
The auditor discovered that the company had been __________ to cover up its debts.
Answer
cooking the books
2. Choose the correct meaning of “cooking the books”:
A) Preparing reports for a business dinner
B) Falsifying financial records
C) Organizing company cookbooks
Answer
B) Falsifying financial records
3. Rewrite the sentence using the idiom:
“They altered the financial statements to hide their losses.” → Change the sentence using: cook the books
Answer
They cooked the books to hide their losses.
ℹ️ Other Useful Pages
👉 Finance and Accounting Idioms
👉 Business English Idioms List
👉 Student Space
👉 Tutor Toolkit
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