cockamamie
/ˌkɑ.kəˈmeɪ.mi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.70 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A decal, a design that can be transferred to a surface.
American usage; Countable; Dated; Uncountable
adj
Example Sentences
- "“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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "“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?”"
- "Most of his ideas were pure cockamamie. One of them, however, was a real beaut."
Etymology
Possible corruption of French décalcomanie (“process of transferring designs onto surfaces using decals”); sometimes erroneously claimed to derive from Yiddish.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: décalcomanie
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌkɑ.kəˈmeɪ.mi/
- British English: /ˌkɒk.əˈmeɪ.mi/
Usage
- American usage
- Countable
- Dated
- Uncountable
- Informal
Inflected Forms
cockamamies (plural)
cockamamy (alternative)
cockamammy (alternative)
more cockamamie (comparative)
most cockamamie (superlative)