Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective foolish, silly
  • adjective trifling

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective ludicrous, foolish

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From a word used to describe a child's rub-on tattoo.

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Examples

  • Donald R. Morris The Houston Post In "The Joys and Oys of Yiddish" [XV,3], Messrs. Lederer and Schenkerman put the word cockamamy

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XI No 4 1989

  • FITZWATER: Well, the "cockamamy" part of the idea that a President is going to be so intimidated by the press or wilt under the pressure and walk out of the Presidency, or something like that.

    Call the Briefing! Bush & Reagan, Sam & Helen: A Decade with Presidents and the Press 1995

  • "Come on now, Peter, please don't try to flatter me with some kind of cockamamy line about love at first sight," she said, giving him a look that told him she wouldn't begin to believe it if he tried.

    From This Beloved Hour Lambert, Willa 1982

  • I went along with this cockamamy plan to blame India because you told me to look at the bigger picture.

    A Good Man is Hard to Find ReShonda Tate Billingsley 2010

  • I went along with this cockamamy plan to blame India because you told me to look at the bigger picture.

    A Good Man is Hard to Find ReShonda Tate Billingsley 2010

  • So now he looked somehow less of a man because he refused to fight her cockamamy wars.

    Broken Symmetry Angela Brett 2010

  • Plz oh plz oh plz show me the poll that backs up this cockamamy assertion.

    Poll: Obama Slips Against McCain, Now Losing Among Independents 2009

  • He lay with his legs on his king-sized bed and his body folded forward off the edge, toward the floor, in what looked suspiciously like a cockamamy approximation of a Downward-Facing Dog.

    The Ex Games JENNIFER ECHOLS 2009

  • He lay with his legs on his king-sized bed and his body folded forward off the edge, toward the floor, in what looked suspiciously like a cockamamy approximation of a Downward-Facing Dog.

    The Ex Games JENNIFER ECHOLS 2009

  • For example, Obama extend invitations to the GOP which then goes and shoots itself in the collective foot with cockamamy rejections.

    George Spyros: Obama's Modus Operandi: NYT Coverage of Coen Brothers Clean Coal Ad 2009

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