cock-and-bull story
[kok-uh n-boo l]
- an absurd, improbable story presented as the truth: Don't ask him about his ancestry unless you want to hear a cock-and-bull story.
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Origin of cock-and-bull story
First recorded in 1600–10; probably with orig. reference to some fable in which a cock and bull figure
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for cock-and-bull story
Historical Examples
That sounds like a cock-and-bull-story,—said the young fellow whom they call John.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-TableOliver Wendell Holmes
cock-and-bull story
- informal an obviously improbable story, esp a boastful one or one used as an excuse
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
cock-and-bull story
A story that is false: “When John came home at 3:30 a.m., he gave his mother some cock-and-bull story about having a flat tire on the way home.”
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.