Here's a nice clear definition of cookie, from the folks at cnet:
 
"When you need to pass some snippet  of information to another system to
make it do something, how do you do it? If you're on the Web or some other
network, you use a cookie (also known as a magic cookie). The cookie is a
text file saved in your browser's directory or folder and stored in RAM
while your browser is running. Most of the information in a cookie is
pretty mundane stuff, but some Web sites use cookies to store personal
preferences. (SEARCH.COM, MSN, and Netscape all have personalization
processes that use cookies to store information). If you want to see what
information is stored in your cookie file, use a text editor or a word
processor to open a file called cookie.txt or MagicCookie in your browser's
folder or directory."
 
http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/Terms/cookie.html
 
From what I understand, the name is a leftover, from the early days of
computing (what, last Tuesday?), meaning some goodie or nifty trick.
 
HTH
Kris Hirst
Office of the State Archaeologist
The University of Iowa
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