cookie

(computer science) A data file written to a hard drive by some Web sites, contains information the site can use to track such things as passwords, login, registration or identification, user preferences, online shopping cart information, and lists of pages visited.

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A handle, transaction ID, or other token of agreement between cooperating programs. “I give him a packet, he gives me back a cookie.” The claim check you get from a dry-cleaning shop is a perfect mundane example of a cookie; the only thing it's useful for is to relate a later transaction to this one (so you get the same clothes back). Syn. magic cookie; see also fortune cookie. Now mainstream in the specific sense of web-browser cookies.