kook

noun

: one whose ideas or actions are eccentric, fantastic, or insane : screwball

Examples of kook in a Sentence

a bunch of kooks dressed up in weird costumes if you insist on painting your house bright orange, everyone will assume you are a kook
Recent Examples on the Web Before, a typical kook at Linda Mar would cut you off, fall, and apologize while laughing at himself. Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, 8 Mar. 2024 Now Rodgers is considered by many to be a kook, someone who let himself get hoodwinked by junk science and conspiracies. USA TODAY, 10 Jan. 2024 Emma Stone’s monster turn Poor Things Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos are back with another archly funny period piece about a bunch of kooks. Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 29 Aug. 2023 Others were kooks, and some were dangerous scoundrels—or some combination thereof. Roy Berendsohn, Popular Mechanics, 24 Aug. 2023 While such protests would likely receive support as well as backlash now, in the early ’90s O’Connor ended up getting it from both sides, targeted by the right as a heretic and agitator and mocked by the left as a kook. Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, 27 July 2023 This chill beach town is full of sun, sand, and waves for pros, kooks (beginners), and groms (kids) alike. Yousra Attia, ELLE, 9 June 2023 Meanwhile, Jillian, who at the start seems both to Craig and to us like a total kook — a relentlessly upbeat chatterbox who muses that 16 was a great age to have her dad die — reveals deeper, softer, sometimes sadder layers over the course of the season. Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Apr. 2022 But Cotton is not some random right-wing kook. Oliver Darcy, CNN, 9 June 2020

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'kook.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

by shortening & alteration from cuckoo

First Known Use

1960, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of kook was in 1960

Dictionary Entries Near kook

Cite this Entry

“Kook.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kook. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

kook

noun
: a person who acts in a strange or insane way : nut
kooky
ˈkü-kē
adjective

More from Merriam-Webster on kook

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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