Cuckoo

How to spell cuckoo

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cuckoo

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cuckoo mean?

1. nounA migratory bird known for its distinctive two-note call and, in some species, for laying its eggs in the nests of other birds.
2. adjectiveInformally, foolish, eccentric, or mentally unbalanced.

Cuckoo in a sentence

• noun

  The cuckoo returns to the woodland every spring.

• adjective

  The whole plan sounded completely cuckoo when she explained it.

• noun

  A female cuckoo often lays her egg in another bird's nest.

• adjective

  He went a little cuckoo after weeks of no sleep.

Where does cuckoo come from?

Language of origin: French

Cuckoo is an imitative or echoic word, meaning its very sound was modelled on the distinctive two-note call of the bird. English borrowed it in the 1200s from the Old French 'cucu', which in turn simply mimicked the springtime cry of the bird. Earlier Old English had its own echoic name for the bird, 'geac', but the more obviously sound-alike French form gradually replaced it. The doubled 'oo' at the end captures the falling second note of the call, which is why the spelling looks so playfully repetitive. By the early 1900s the word had also picked up an informal sense of 'crazy' or 'foolish', a development tied to old jokes about the cuckoo being a silly or empty-headed bird.

How the word is built

• cuck-
• -oo (an imitative word echoing the bird's two-note call, with no separable prefix or suffix)