different between zany vs cockamamie

English

Etymology

From Middle French zani, zanni, from Italian zanni (“a kind of masked clown character”), from Zanni, a dialectal form of Giovanni.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ze?ni/
• Rhymes: -e?ni
• Hyphenation: za?ny

Adjective

zany (comparative zanier, superlative zaniest)

1. Unusual and awkward in a funny, comical manner; outlandish; clownish.
2. Ludicrously or incongruously comical.

Synonyms

• wacky

Derived terms

• zaniness

Translations

Noun

zany (plural zanies)

1. (obsolete) A fool or clown, especially one whose business on the stage is to imitate foolishly the actions of the principal clown.
   • a. 1631, John Donne, Epistle to Mr. I. W.

     Then write that I may follow, and so be / Thy echo, thy debtor, thy foil, thy zany.

   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     So there he caught me lying like a zany on the ground. You may guess I stood at attention soon enough, but told him I was looking at the founds to see if they wanted underpinning from the floods.

Verb

zany (third-person singular simple present zanies, present participle zanying, simple past and past participle zanied)

1. (obsolete) To mimic foolishly.

References

• John Dover Wilson, comp. (1911) Life in Shakespeare's England: A Book of Elizabethan Prose, Cambridge: At the University Press, OCLC 2938084.

Anagrams

• Zayn, zayn

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