different between assignment vs cockamamie

English

Etymology

From Middle English assignement, from Old French assignement.

Pronunciation

Noun

assignment (countable and uncountable, plural assignments)

1. The act of assigning; the allocation of a job or a set of tasks.

   This flow chart represents the assignment of tasks in our committee.

2. The categorization of something as belonging to a specific category.

   We should not condone the assignment of asylum seekers to that of people smugglers.

3. An assigned task.

   The assignment the department gave him proved to be quite challenging.

4. A position to which someone is assigned.

   Unbeknownst to Mr Smith, his new assignment was in fact a demotion.

5. (education) A task given to students, such as homework or coursework.

   Mrs Smith gave out our assignments, and said we had to finish them by Monday.

6. (law) A transfer of a right or benefit from one person to another.

   The assignment of the lease has not been finalised yet.

7. (law) A document that effects this transfer.

   Once you receive the assignment in the post, be sure to sign it and send it back as soon as possible.

8. (programming) An operation that assigns a value to a variable.

Hyponyms

• (programming): augmented assignment

Translations

References

• assignment on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Alternative forms

• cockamamy, cockamammy

Etymology

Possible corruption of French décalcomanie (“process of transferring designs onto surfaces using decals”); sometimes erroneously claimed to derive from Yiddish.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?k??me?mi/
• Rhymes: -e?mi

Noun

cockamamie (plural cockamamies)

1. (US, chiefly dated) A decal, a design that can be transferred to a surface.
   • 1934, Henry Roth, Call It Sleep, 1976, page 367,

     “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.

   • 1987, Verbatim, Volumes 14-15, page 24,

     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.

   • 2011, Prospero Shimon, Autobiography of a Repaired Physician, unnumbered page,

     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.

2. A foolish or ridiculous person.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:fool

   • 1970, Esquire, Volume 74, page 69,

     “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?”

Translations

Adjective

cockamamie (comparative more cockamamie, superlative most cockamamie)

1. (informal) Foolish, ill-considered, silly, unbelievable.

   Synonyms: goofy, sappy, unreasonable; see also Thesaurus:foolish, Thesaurus:absurd

   • 2007, Suzann Ledbetter, Halfway To Half Way, 2012, unnumbered page,

     Notions didn’t come more cockamamie than this one, but one unrepressed chortle and Delbert would be furious, or feel like a fool.

2. Trifling.

Translations

Further reading

• “cockamamie”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

References