cuckoo

(redirected from coocoo)

be in cloud-cuckoo land

To believe in or be absorbed by unrealistic, idealized, and/or fanciful ideas that are beyond the realms of possibility. If Tom thinks he'll be able to live off his bad poetry, he's in cloud-cuckoo land!

cloud-cuckoo land

A state or realm of unrealistic and idealized fancy, beyond the realms of possibility. Often preceded by "live/be in." He's always got some harebrained schemes on how to fix the world, all of them right out of cloud-cuckoo land! If Tom thinks he'll be able to live off his bad poetry, he's living in cloud-cuckoo land!

cuckoo

Crazy. There's a guy on our corner who shouts about the end of the world; I think he's a little cuckoo.

cuckoo in the nest

Someone in a group who is seen as different and ostracized by their peers. Since Sam always got good grades and never got in trouble, he was seen by his unruly peers as a cuckoo in the nest.

live in cloud-cuckoo land

To believe that unrealistic, idealized, and/or fanciful ideas will happen, when in fact they are beyond the realms of possibility. Tom thinks he'll be able to live off his bad poetry—he's living in cloud-cuckoo land if you ask me!

cloud-cuckoo land

An idealized mythical domain, as in That idea about flying cars is straight out of cloud-cuckoo land. This expression originated as a translation from the Greek of Aristophanes' play The Birds, where it signifies the realm built by the birds to separate the gods from humankind. It came into use in the 1820s. During the 19th century it began to be used for a place of wildly fanciful dreams, unrealistic expectations, or the like, and it also acquired the connotation of "crazy" (from cuckoo, slang for "crazy" since about 1900). Also see la-la land; never-never land.

cuckoo in the nest

an unwelcome intruder in a place or situation.

The female cuckoo often lays its eggs in other birds' nests. Once hatched, the cuckoo fledgling pushes the other birds' fledglings out of the nest.

coo-coo

and cuckoo

1. mod. unconscious. I socked him on the snoot and knocked him coo-coo.

2. mod. insane. How did I ever get involved in this cuckoo scheme, anyway?

cuckoo

verb

See coo-coo

Cloud Cuckoo Land

A nonexistent place of perfection, a utopia. This phrase comes from The Birds by the Greek dramatist Aristophanes, in which the birds decide to build a perfect city called Cloud Cuckoo City. Over the years “City” became “Land.”

See also: cloud, cuckoo, land

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References in periodicals archive ?

The tracks are "Walkin' the Dog" (3:05), "Yamawele" (4:24), "Body Beat" (3:24), "Little Liza Jane" (2:40), "Cumbe" (2:02), "Rara" (2:11), "Breaths" (3:35), "CooCoo" (3:37), "Krin" (2:54), "Jalan-Jalan" (2:01), "Flores" (3:24), and "I Like Everything About You (Yes I Do!)" (8:56).

Crosspulse Percussion Ensemble

Innu writers included Jean-Louis Fontaine, Innu/Wendat Genevieve Mackenzie-Sioui, Real Leblanc, Melina Vassiliou, Maya Cousineau-Mollen and Jacinthe Connolly, Charles Coocoo, the first Attikamek to publish a poetry collection, Algonquin Metis Michel Noll, and Cree writer Tomson Highway.

Wendake creates first ever Native literature gathering

Le recueil rassemble les creations litteraires de certains auteurs connus comme Bernard Assiniwi (<< La saga des Beothuks >>) et Charles Coocoo (<< Broderies sur Mocassins >>), ainsi que d'autres dont les textes n'apparaissent que pour la premiere fois; citons en exemple un poeme sur le metissage de Romeo Saganash, l'un des acteurs politiques du Grand Conseil des Cris, un extrait d'une experience de detention dans l'autobiographie de l'Innu Jean-Paul Joseph et le temoignage sur les pensionnats de Marcelline Boivin-Coocoo.

Litterature amerindienne du Quebec. Ecrits de langue francaise

The following day there will be a 'chillout vibe session' with some of Mid Wales' best musicians including Ember, Baswci, Three Minute Warning, Cloud Coocoo, Ffebrins and D Tox.

A feast of Celtic entertainment

An uninformed observer would conclude we've all flown over the coocoo's nest!

Is a finger phone in your future?

As the sun blazes down with growing intensity, the revelers advance on downtown Charlotteville, where they join neighbors and visitors for a copious community lunch of curried crab cakes and dumpling, cassava and corn coocoo, steaming helpings of stewed fish, pork, and chicken plus fruit punch, gingger beer, and mauby, a nonalcoholic beverage made from tree bark.

Tobago's living stage for heritage: each year, residents of this small Caribbean island celebrate their rich and complex past while building pride in their cultural identity for modern generations