First recorded in 1600–10; probably with original reference to some fable in which a cock and bull figure
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Though some writers and critics were unimpressed — John Dos Passos described it as “a cock-and-bull story about a whole lot of tourists getting drunk” — most found the novel stylistically invigorating and sociologically profound.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 8, 2016
Even so, if my husband came to me with this confession, I’d probably be suspicious it was something of a cock-and-bull story and that he was withholding the most interesting details.
From Slate ● May 23, 2013
For so long, any notion that England would have openers who consistently scored ODI hundreds would have been dismissed as a cock-and-bull story.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 20, 2012
Q: Why did you go into such great circumstantial detail about this thing if you were telling a cock-and-bull story?
From Time Magazine Archive
“How he could have fallen for this cock-and-bull story is beyond my comprehension except that he may have wanted to.”
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
At Bristol Crown Court, judge Sir John Griffiths Williams said Halliwell's defence was a "cock and bull story".
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2016
Which is, the whole cock and bull story idea, the whole shaggy dog story—the humor of it is how long and elaborate it is.
From Slate ● Mar. 16, 2016
He was under huge pressure when he told what he later called that cock and bull story.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 9, 2012
China's state news agency Xinhua denounced the document as a scaremongering "cock and bull story".
From The Guardian ● Aug. 25, 2011
Who lived on the man's revenues as his wife, and even bore his title, and now in such an emergency as this we are to take a cock and bull story as gospel.
From Is He Popenjoy? by Trollope, Anthony
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
