cuckoo
Pluralcuckoos
Verbcuckoos, cuckooing, cuckooed
Pluralcuckoos
Formscuckoos, cuckooing, cuckooed
- 1Any of various birds of the family Cuculidae, known for laying their eggs in other species' nests; especially the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), with its two-note call.
A cuckoo had laid its egg among the warbler's, and the larger chick soon pushed the others out.
Birdwatchers walked the marsh at dawn, hoping to hear the cuckoo before it flew south again.
Note
The voice is what people know the bird by, which is the point of Shakespeare's line in The Merchant of Venice: "He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo, / By the bad voice."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The quoted words occur in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice; Portia speaks them, comparing recognition of her voice to recognition of a cuckoo by its voice. gutenberg.org
- 2Crazy, or not in one's right mind.
After three days stuck inside with the kids, I'm about to go cuckoo.
Everyone thought her plan to row across the Atlantic alone was completely cuckoo.
UsageUsually after a verb, not before a noun: go cuckoo, completely cuckoo.
Similarcrazy, nuts, bonkers, loopy, mad
Oppositesane
- 3A cuckoo clock as a whole, rather than the bird figure inside it.
The cuckoo in the kitchen struck noon just as the soup came to a boil.
Grandma winds the old cuckoo in the hall every Sunday night.
- 4The characteristic two-note call of the cuckoo.
Early each morning, a faint cuckoo drifted across the valley from the far hills.
The kids answered each cuckoo from the woods with one of their own.
- 5A person who is crazy.
Some cuckoo kept calling the radio station to report aliens in his backyard.
The guy in 4B is a harmless cuckoo who talks to his houseplants.
UsageA put-down even when said lightly. Avoid it about someone with a real mental illness.
Similarnut, nutcase, loony, lunatic, crackpot
Note
As a noun it puts a label on the whole person, and it is a put-down even when said lightly: a harmless cuckoo is still being laughed at.
- 6The small bird figure in a cuckoo clock that emerges from a little door to call out the hour.
On the hour, the little door swung open and the cuckoo popped out to call three times.
The clockmaker carved a new cuckoo to replace the one with the broken beak.
- 7A person who works their way by cunning into a place where they do not belong, especially in the phrase a cuckoo in the nest.
Longtime staff came to regard the chairman's nephew as the cuckoo in the nest, a man who had flattered his way into a job nobody had advertised.
The lodger who came for a week was still there a year later, a cuckoo who had quietly taken over the best room.
Similarinterloper, intruder
Note
The phrase borrows its picture from the bird, which lays its egg in another species' nest and leaves the hosts to raise the chick. So a cuckoo in the nest is more than a gatecrasher: it is someone who has been taken in and fed by the very household or firm whose place it threatens. Used without the nest, the word keeps the same suspicion of cunning.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- The phrase alludes to the cuckoo's brood parasitism. commonreader.wustl.edu
- The cuckoo lays eggs in other species' nests and leaves those birds to raise its young. rspb.org.uk
- 8To take over the home of a vulnerable person and use it, out of sight, for organized crime.
Dealers look for isolated tenants to cuckoo, and a man who has been cuckooed is often too frightened to ring the police.
Detectives believe the gang cuckooed three tenants on the estate to hide cash and stolen goods.
UsageOften passive: a tenant has been cuckooed. The crime itself is called cuckooing.
Note
This is British police language, built on the image of the cuckoo in the nest: the gang lodges itself in someone else's home and works there out of sight. The passive comes naturally, because the person it happens to is the focus, as in Sally Wainwright's Happy Valley: "She'll have been cuckooed." In that line the home hides cash the gang cannot launder fast enough.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- Cuckooing is British police terminology for criminals taking over a vulnerable person's home. en.wikipedia.org
- The criminal sense draws on the image of a cuckoo occupying another bird's nest. merseyside.police.uk
- Sally Wainwright wrote Happy Valley. en.wikipedia.org
- The exact quotation occurs in Happy Valley, spoken by Catherine Cawood in series 3, episode 2. en.wiktionary.org
- The dialogue concerns hiding the gang's money in someone else's home because it cannot be laundered quickly enough. en.wiktionary.org
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Origin
From Middle English cokkou, cukkuk, probably from Old French cocu, cucu (whence French coucou), and ultimately imitating the song of the male common cuckoo, perhaps via Latin cucūlus ("cuckoo"). It displaced Middle English gnokken and the native yeke, from Old English ġēac ("cuckoo"; see gowk). The UK sense comes by analogy from the bird's habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- The word continues Middle English cokkou and cukkuk, probably borrowed from Old French cocu or cucu, also ancestral to French coucou. en.wiktionary.org
- The name ultimately imitates the male common cuckoo's call. en.wikipedia.org
- Latin cucūlus, meaning cuckoo, is a possible intermediary. en.wiktionary.org
- Cuckoo displaced Middle English gnokken and the native yeke, descended from Old English ġēac; gowk is related. en.wiktionary.org
- The British criminal sense comes by analogy from cuckoo brood parasitism. en.wikipedia.org
- The common cuckoo lays eggs in other birds' nests. en.wikipedia.org