variants
or cockamamie
as in ridiculous
so foolish or pointless as to be worthy of scornful laughter
a cockamamy plan that could only have been dreamt up by a cartoonish mad scientist
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of cockamamy
Affleck directs and stars as Tony Mendez, a CIA exfiltration specialist who comes up with a cockamamie scheme to free a group of hostages hiding in the home of a Canadian diplomat.
—
Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 26 Dec. 2025
Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 26 Dec. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cockamamy
Adjective
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My child comes home from her other parent’s house with stories that sound absolutely ridiculous.—
Jann Blackstone,
Boston Herald,
15 Feb. 2026
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The sheer display of athleticism and creativity of a dunk with zero props or especially push-offs will always impress me more than someone who pushes off, even seeing just how ridiculous and difficult that dunk is.—
Zach Harper,
New York Times,
12 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Straight men, in particular, are only talked about, kept in the background, or appearing as authority figures trying to uphold absurd laws and traditions.—
Murtada Elfadl,
Variety,
13 Feb. 2026
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Pepsi’s chart is absurd and someone’s going to look stupid when the momentum fades.—
Josh Brown,Sean Russo,
CNBC,
9 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Don’t feel silly asking at the ski shop.—
Moira McCarthy,
Boston Herald,
11 Feb. 2026
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Walker offers this diagnosis himself, leeringly dismissing Pearl as a silly mommy, awash with hormones, mildly and minorly hysterical.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
10 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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These clowns don't even have the courage of their pathetic White supremacist convictions.—
Bill Goodykoontz,
AZCentral.com,
6 Feb. 2026
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This kind of Jim Crow–style dehumanization is pathetic and a disgrace to the office.—
Melina Khan,
USA Today,
6 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Counting on one of the league’s most expensive talents to play meaningful minutes from here on out at his age with a track record like that is nearly as foolish as Nico trading a perennial MVP candidate at 26.—
Kevin Sherrington
Feb. 4,
Dallas Morning News,
4 Feb. 2026
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The lesson isn’t that NBA teams are reckless or foolish.—
Spencer Harrison,
New York Times,
1 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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But maybe Johnson isn’t stupid.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
11 Feb. 2026
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Such as the one where the candidate remarked that some white rural Americans were stupid and racist.—
Mark Leibovich,
The Atlantic,
11 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Cockamamy.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cockamamy. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.
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