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Cuckoo
Definitions
- 1 Crazy; not sane. slang
"I think I'm going cuckoo!"
- 1 A locality in Dorset council area, north eastern Tasmania, Australia.
- 1 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. countable, uncountable
"He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo, / By the bad voice."
- 2 any of numerous European and North American birds having pointed wings and a long tail wordnet
- 3 The sound of that particular bird. countable, uncountable
- 4 a man who is a stupid incompetent fool wordnet
- 5 The bird-shaped figure found in cuckoo clocks. countable, uncountable
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 The cuckoo clock itself. countable, uncountable
- 7 A person who inveigles themselves into a place where they should not be (used especially in the phrase a cuckoo in the nest). countable, uncountable
- 8 Someone who is crazy. countable, slang, uncountable
- 9 Alternative form of coo-coo (Barbadian food). alt-of, alternative, countable, uncountable
- 1 To make the call of a cuckoo.
"Switzerland is the home of many musical toys and here were carved whistles in the shapes of birds. 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'."
- 2 repeat monotonously, like a cuckoo repeats its call wordnet
- 3 To repeat something incessantly.
- 4 To take over the home of a vulnerable person for the purposes of carrying out organized crime in a concealed way. UK
"She'll have been cuckooed. That'll be the Knezevics. They can't launder fast enough, so what do you do with it? Where do you put it? You hide it in somebody else's place; somebody who han't got a clue what's going on and couldn't do a fat lot about it if they did."
Etymology
From Middle English cokkou, kokkow, cukkuk, gokkouȝ, probably from Old French cocu, coquu, cucu (whence French coucou); ultimately onomatopoeic of the song of the male Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), perhaps via Latin cucūlus (“cuckoo”). Compare dialectal English gowkoo (“cuckoo”). Displaced Middle English gnokken (“cuckoo”) and native Middle English yeke, ȝek (from Old English ġēac (“cuckoo”)), see English gowk. The UK sense is by analogy from the bird's practice of brood parasitism.
From Middle English cokkou, kokkow, cukkuk, gokkouȝ, probably from Old French cocu, coquu, cucu (whence French coucou); ultimately onomatopoeic of the song of the male Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), perhaps via Latin cucūlus (“cuckoo”). Compare dialectal English gowkoo (“cuckoo”). Displaced Middle English gnokken (“cuckoo”) and native Middle English yeke, ȝek (from Old English ġēac (“cuckoo”)), see English gowk. The UK sense is by analogy from the bird's practice of brood parasitism.
From Middle English cokkou, kokkow, cukkuk, gokkouȝ, probably from Old French cocu, coquu, cucu (whence French coucou); ultimately onomatopoeic of the song of the male Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), perhaps via Latin cucūlus (“cuckoo”). Compare dialectal English gowkoo (“cuckoo”). Displaced Middle English gnokken (“cuckoo”) and native Middle English yeke, ȝek (from Old English ġēac (“cuckoo”)), see English gowk. The UK sense is by analogy from the bird's practice of brood parasitism.
See also for "cuckoo"
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