cockamamie

plural cockamamies · alternative cockamamy · alternative cockamammy

1. UScountabledateduncountableA decal, a design that can be transferred to a surface.

   Lo and behold, in full color there was a photograph of an old glass-paned hanging cupboard with clusters of strawberry, cherry, green grape and apple “cockamamies” pasted in the center of each pane.

   2000, Lillian Bressman, Tales of Mama and Other Reminiscences, page 201

   3 more examples

   “If it wuz a nickel,” said one broody voice between the gratings, “I could buy fuh two cends cockamamies an’ pud em on mine hull arm. An’ den fuh t’ree cends I’ll go to duh movies.” “Yuh c’n buy fuh t’ree cends cockamamies.” Izzy crisply revised the dream.

   1934, Henry Roth, Call It Sleep, published 1976, page 367

   As a youngster in The Bronx in the early 1930s, I would occasionally take my windfall of a few pennies to the local candy store and buy a strip of cockamamies, ‘comic-style cartoons in brilliant colors, each about an inch by an inch and a half, transferable to forearm or forehead by wetting’, preferably with saliva to make things agreeably messy.

   1987, Verbatim, volumes 14-15, page 24

   She bought Japanese furniture in 1943 when everyone hated the Japanese. Goldfarb’s furniture store on Pitkin Avenue could hardly give the stuff away. Evelyn had cockamamies—decorative plastic adhesives all over the walls.

   2011, Prospero Shimon, Autobiography of a Repaired Physician, unnumbered page

2. countableuncountableA foolish or ridiculous person.

   “What’s going down here, you cockamamies, we’re releasing two pictures this week about goddamn rich guys who get involved with their goddamn black tenants? What is this, an April Fool’s memo?”

   1970, Esquire, volume 74, page 69

   Synonyms: alcatote, asshat, arsehole, asshole, bayard, berk, birdbrain, blither

3. countableuncountableRidiculousness; folly; foolish nonsense.

   Most of his ideas were pure cockamamie. One of them, however, was a real beaut.

   2005, Tom De Haven, It's Superman!, page 217

   1 more example

   Among the items related to Liveliness, "Feel that I have a lot of inner strength" is positively keyed, making it an extroverted quality. Really? That's just cockamamie. What does inner strength have to do with introversion or extroversion?

   2012, Sophia Dembling, The Introvert's Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World

comparative more cockamamie · superlative most cockamamie · alternative cockamamy · alternative cockamammy

1. informalFoolish, ill-considered, silly, unbelievable.

   Do not give any more cockamamie reasons for failing to complete your assignment.

   5 more examples

   Anyone arguing against even the most cockamamie idea, so long as that idea is supposed to benefit conservation, is viewed with suspicion, at best.

   2004, William Dritschilo, Earth Days: Ecology Comes Of Age As A Science, page 271

   And I dare say it’ll get even more cockamamie.

   2005, George D. Schultz, Returning: Can One Ever Go Back?, page 8

   Cowboys & Aliens has without any doubt the most cockamamie plot I’ve witnessed in many a moon.

   2012, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook 2013: 25th Anniversary Edition, page 113

   Notions didn’t come more cockamamie than this one, but one unrepressed chortle and Delbert would be furious, or feel like a fool.

   2007, Suzann Ledbetter, Halfway To Half Way, published 2012, unnumbered page

   Zelensky apparently feels he has no choice but to sign some kind of cockamamie minerals deal, even though Trump is demanding three times or four times the roughly $120 billion the United States has given Ukraine in military, humanitarian and other financial aid[…].

   2025 February 25, Thomas L. Friedman, “The Disturbing Question at the Heart of the Trump-Putin Drama”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: goofy, sappy, unreasonable, asinine, balmy, barmy, bedaft, loony

2. Trifling.