The English word “cookie” comes from the Dutch word koekje, meaning “little cake.”
Koekje is the diminutive of koek, the Dutch word for cake. English speakers in North America adopted and anglicized the term through contact with Dutch settlers, especially in New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony that later became New York. The spelling and pronunciation gradually developed into cookie or cooky.
The word’s history is separate from the broader history of sweet baked goods. Cookie-like wafers existed long before the English term, and modern cookies developed in many forms across Europe and the Middle East. The Dutch contribution was chiefly linguistic in this case: koekje supplied the familiar name used in American and Canadian English.
A common mix-up is pannenkoek, which means pancake, while taartje means a small tart or pastry and broodje means a small bread or roll. In Britain and many other English-speaking countries, similar foods are more often called biscuits, although cookie remains common for particular styles such as chocolate-chip cookies.