cockamamie
/ˌkɒk.əˈmeɪ.mi/US/ˌkɑ.kəˈmeɪ.mi/
cockamamie noun: a decal, a design that can be transferred to a surface.
Noun
cockamamie (countable and uncountable, plural cockamamies)
- A decal, a design that can be transferred to a surface.
- “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’...1987, Verbatim, volumes 14-15, page 24
- “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.”
- A 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
- Ridiculousness; 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
- 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
Adjective
cockamamie (comparative more cockamamie, superlative most cockamamie)
- Foolish, ill-considered, silly, unbelievable.
- Do not give any more cockamamie reasons for failing to complete your assignment.
- 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
- Trifling.
Examples of cockamamie in a sentence
- 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:
- Evelyn had cockamamies—decorative plastic adhesives all over the walls.2011, Prospero Shimon, Autobiography of a Repaired Physician, unnumbered page:
- 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:
Synonyms of cockamamie
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of cockamamie
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cockamamies |
| alternative form | cockamamy |
| alternative form | cockamammy |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more cockamamie |
| superlative | most cockamamie |
Origin of cockamamie
Possible corruption of French décalcomanie (“process of transferring designs onto surfaces using decals”); sometimes erroneously claimed to derive from Yiddish.
Words that rhyme with cockamamie
Questions about cockamamie
- What does cockamamie mean?
- Cockamamie means a decal, a design that can be transferred to a surface.
- How do you use cockamamie in a sentence?
- 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.
- What part of speech is cockamamie?
- Cockamamie can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce cockamamie?
- Cockamamie is pronounced /ˌkɒk.əˈmeɪ.mi/ (UK).
- What is the plural of cockamamie?
- The plural of cockamamie is cockamamies.
Words near cockamamie in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cockamamie (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cockamamie.wav.
Cite this entry: “cockamamie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cockamamie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.