cockeyed

adjective

cock·​eyed ˈkäk-ˌīd 

1

: turned or tilted to one side : askew

a cockeyed hat

He had brown curly hair, and a little cockeyed grin that made girls and women smile back.

—Tracy Kidder

In the narrow streets between are steep-roofed Renaissance houses with sculpted beams, cockeyed walls, and old wells.

—R. W. Apple, Jr.

2

: somewhat confusing, foolish, absurd, or impractical

a cockeyed scheme/idea

Call me a peacenik, a cockeyed optimist, a technology fanboy—I've been called worse—but I see the opportunity in engaging, in negotiating, and in connecting these cultures …

—Jeff Jarvis

A mondegreen is a cockeyed new word or phrase resulting from mishearing a proper word or phrase …

—Rudolph Chelminski

also : in utter confusion or disorder : topsy-turvy

Bruce Catton called it "a startling novel about the horrible things that can happen to a man in the cockeyed postwar world of Europe … a world gone mad."

—John Anthony West

3

: having a cockeye

4

: drunk sense 1a

… gets wonderfully cockeyed in the neighborhood bar with her old friends.

—Jane Cobb

cockeyedly

ˈkäk-ˌī(-ə)d-lē 

adverb

cockeyedness

ˈkäk-ˌīd-nəs 

noun

Synonyms

• askew
• aslant
• atilt
• awry
• cock-a-hoop
• crazy
• crooked
• listing
• lopsided
• oblique
• off-kilter
• pitched
• skewed
• slanted
• slanting
• slantwise
• tilted
• tipping
• uneven

Examples of cockeyed in a Sentence

The windows of the house look cockeyed.

Where did you get those cockeyed ideas?

She is full of cockeyed optimism.

Recent Examples on the Web

This is a show with the emotional tenor of doomsday preppers and dystopian survivalists, albeit without the cockeyed conspiracy theories. —Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 2 July 2024

Santos was elected by cockeyed voters with his cheating, lying and posing. —Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 21 Feb. 2024

What results is a kind of cockeyed mystery not at all about whodunnit but about why these two lovers felt compelled to resort to violence and lies. —Scott Tobias, Vulture, 14 Apr. 2024

The story is also underwhelming, consisting of two unrelated subplots about mutant insects growing to gigantic size after being exposed to a plasma energy experiment, and a cockeyed plot to kill Godzilla by sucking him into a portable black hole. —Katie Rife, EW.com, 28 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1737, in the meaning defined at sense 4

Kids Definition

cockeyed

adjective

cock·​eyed ˈkäk-ˈīd 

1

: having a squinting eye

2

: turned or tilted to one side

3

: somewhat confusing, foolish, absurd, or impractical

Medical Definition

cockeyed

adjective

cock·​eyed ˈkäk-ˈīd 

: having a cockeye