| a thin folded wafer containing a prediction or maxim printed on a slip of paper: often served as a dessert in Chinese restaurants. |
| fortune cookie n. A cookie made from a thin layer of dough folded and baked around a slip of paper bearing a prediction of fortune or a maxim. |
fortune cookie
(WAITS, via the Unix "fortune" program) A quotation, item of trivia, joke, or maxim selected at random from a collection (the "cookie file") and printed to the user's tty at login time or (less commonly) at logout time.
There was a fortune program on TOPS-20.
[First program?]
[The Jargon File]
(1995-02-14)