cockeyed

cockeyed

See also: cock-eyed

English

Alternative forms

• cock-eyed (British)

Etymology

cock +‎ eyed

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɒkˌaɪd/, /ˌkɒkˈaɪd/

Adjective

cockeyed (comparative more cockeyed, superlative most cockeyed)

1. Having both eyes oriented inward, cross-eyed.
2. Crooked or askew.
   • 1950, Langston Hughes, Simple Speaks His Mind, Chapter 12, in The Early Simple Stories, The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 7, edited by Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper, University of Missouri Press, 2002, p. 60–61,

     This morning I paid seventy cents for two little old dried-up slivers of bacon and one cockeyed egg.

   • 2008, Stephen King, Just After Sunset

     The Velcro closure of one sneaker had come loose and stuck up like a cockeyed tongue.

3. (informal) Absurd, silly, or stupid; usually used in reference to ideas rather than people.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:absurd

   I'm not going to go along with your cockeyed plot.

   • 1938, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 3, in Homage to Catalonia‎, London: Secker & Warburg:

     As time went on, and the desultory rifle-fire rattled among the hills, I began to wonder with increasing scepticism whether anything would ever happen to bring a bit of life, or rather a bit of death, into this cock-eyed war.

   • 2021 May 24, Jason Zinoman, “Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan, Our Most Underappreciated Comic”, in The New York Times‎, ISSN 0362-4331:

     While he [Bob Dylan] spent six decades singing about heartache, apocalypse and betrayal, a cockeyed humor has always informed his bleak worldview.

4. Drunk.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:drunk

   • 1934, Sinclair Lewis, Work of Art, New York: P.F. Collier & Son, Chapter 12, p. 166,

     In the private office he said, "Mr. Barrow, I was going to quit."
     "Don't do that, son! You're the only executive I've got that isn't cockeyed all the time! […] "

Related terms

• cockeye

Translations

having both eyes oriented inward — see cross-eyed

crooked, askew — see crooked,‎ askew

absurd, silly, or stupid — see absurd,‎ silly,‎ stupid

drunk — see drunk