Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use cuckoo in a sentence

20 example sentences · noun, verb, adjective

Cuckoo means any of various birds, of the family Cuculidae within the order Cuculiformes, famous for laying its eggs in the nests of other species; but especially a common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), that has a characteristic two-note call. Example: “I think I'm going cuckoo!”

Examples of cuckoo by meaning

nounAny of various birds, of the family Cuculidae within the order Cuculiformes, famous for laying its eggs in the nests of...

  • On the eve of the death of any other Tanville-Tankerton, comes (no matter what be the time of year) a cuckoo.1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published...

verbTo make the call of a cuckoo.

  • These cuckooed realistically when blown into, with the beak opening and shutting, and the tail moving up and down to produce the 'cuck' and the 'oooh'.1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 174

verbTo take over the home of a vulnerable person for the purposes of carrying out organized crime in a concealed way.

  • She'll have been cuckooed.2023, Sally Wainwright, 26:06 from the start, in Happy Valley, season 3, episode 2, spoken by Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire)

adjectiveCrazy; not sane.

  • I think I'm going cuckoo!
  • Lengyel combined to get this cuckoo coup expecting 72 RxR BxP† to win.1964 August, “Amsterdam Interzonal”, in Chess Review

More sentences with cuckoo

  • That sound is the distinctive call of the cuckoo bird.From the entry call
  • "Strike me blind with a horsefeather and let the cuckoo bird eat out my brain!2010, Joel Townsley Rogers, Killing Time and Other Stories, page 256. From the entry horsefeather
  • The male cuckoo is dark in colour, while its female is speckled (called the Gomara Koha).1997, Gamini de S. G. Punchihewa, Vignettes of Far Off Things: Introducing the History, Tank Civilization, Jungle Lore, Fauna, & Flora and…. From the entry koha
  • In this volume the author presents an account of the ants and cuckoo wasps.1904, Experiment Station Record, volume 15, page 280. From the entry cuckoo wasp
  • The channel-bill cuckoos disturbed one another, up in the skies, shouting in a frenzy of old man’s crackle.2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Constable (2009), page 361. From the entry channel-bill cuckoo
  • The channel-bill cuckoos disturbed one another, up in the skies, shouting in a frenzy of old man's cackle.2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo, published 2012, page 376. From the entry channel-billed cuckoo
  • That was the expression for someone who went cuckoo.2004, Sol Weisbrot, Looking Back On My Life, page 50. From the entry Asiatic
  • This girl is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.1994, Helen Childress, Reality Bites, spoken by Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke). From the entry cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs
  • Why should the owl treat the cuckoo thus?1964, David Stephen, Scottish Wild Life, page 52. From the entry footful
  • 'She's totally cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.'2010, Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall. From the entry cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs
  • The roses were in bloom, two nightingales soliloquized in the boskage, a cuckoo was just going out of tune among the lime trees.1932, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, London: Chatto & Windus. From the entry boskage
  • It was beyond the local parson to remain passive while this spiritual cuckoo pulled to pieces this little nest of his victim's weary upbuilding.1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia…. From the entry upbuilding
  • The stories of his adventures outzany those of any other figure in jazz, even certified cuckoos like the maniacal Jack Purvis and the perverse Joe Venuti.1998, Leslie Gourse, The Ella Fitzgerald companion: seven decades of commentary. From the entry outzany
  • In his senility, he still loves racistly, blesses racistly, shoots straight and is cuckoo with the notion that white folks are not white folks but just plain folks.1981, Frank Chin, The Chickencoop Chinaman; And, The Year of the Dragon: Two Plays, Seattle: University of Washington Press, published…. From the entry racistly
  • The yodel in it brought to mind incongruous images, full of holes as a Swiss cheese: among the alpenhorns and cuckoo clocks, cowbells clunked and donged like angeluses gone awry.1998, Ciaran Carson, Last Night's Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music, page 151. From the entry angelus

Meaning of cuckoo

  1. noun Any of various birds, of the family Cuculidae within the order Cuculiformes, famous for laying its eggs in the nests of other species; but especially a common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), that has a characteristic two-note call.
  2. noun The sound of that particular bird.
  3. noun The bird-shaped figure found in cuckoo clocks.

Full definition of cuckoo

Questions about cuckoo in a sentence

How do you use cuckoo in a sentence?
Cuckoo is used as a noun, verb and adjective. For example: “I think I'm going cuckoo!”
What is a short sentence with cuckoo?
“She'll have been cuckooed.”
What does cuckoo mean?
Cuckoo means any of various birds, of the family Cuculidae within the order Cuculiformes, famous for laying its eggs in the nests of other species; but especially a common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), that has a characteristic two-note call.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cuckoo (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use cuckoo in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/cuckoo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.