different between unreasonable vs cockamamie

English

Etymology

From un- +? reason +? -able.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n??i?z(?)n?bl?/
• Hyphenation: un?rea?son?able

Adjective

unreasonable (comparative more unreasonable, superlative most unreasonable)

1. Without the ability to reason; unreasoning.
   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 3,^[1]

     Hold thy desperate hand:

     Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:

     Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote

     The unreasonable fury of a beast:

     Unseemly woman in a seeming man!

2. Not reasonable; going beyond what could be expected or asked for.
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Acts 25:27,^[2]

     For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him.

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter 11,^[3]

     The will of those who never allow their will to be disputed, unless they happen to be in a good humour, when they relax proportionally, is almost always unreasonable.

   Antonym: reasonable

Derived terms

• unreasonableness
• unreasonably

Translations

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