Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Showing results for kooky. Search instead for kookry.
Synonyms

kooky

American  
[koo-kee] / ˈku ki /
Or kookie

adjective

Slang.
kookier, kookiest
  1. of, like, or pertaining to a kook; eccentric, strange, or foolish.


kooky British  
/ ˈkuːkɪ /

adjective

  1. informal crazy, eccentric, or foolish

"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

Etymology

Origin of kooky

First recorded in 1955–60; kook + -y 1


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Many came to Interested in Olive Oil’s defense, calling the reference refreshingly kooky; others wondered why they hadn’t included a touch more detail.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026

And Sam's kooky persona is either going to win people's hearts or crash out spectacularly.

From BBC ● May 15, 2026

At the time it was just another one of his kooky ideas that went nowhere, largely because the people around him were able to give him another shiny object to chase.

From Salon ● Jan. 18, 2026

I’m a little more grounded, a little less kooky, maybe a lot less kooky, but I’m into astrology, I’m into crystals, I’m into energy work, pretty much all the same things.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 15, 2025

Maybe it was kismet, but they spotted an elderly Iranian man dining with his son and decided to rope them into their kooky divorce plan.

From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi

Fittingly, the majority of my favorites came from Cannes’ kookier programming sections, Directors’ Fortnight and Un Certain Regard — and I suspect many of yours did, too, oui?

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026

Second, Ms. Behn’s affordability message seems to be trumping the effect of her kookier statements because she is filling a vacuum left by the White House, which remains quiet on an agenda to lower costs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 1, 2025

That irks the panelists, too, evidenced in a shot of Wilson rolling his eyes at one of Coulter’s kookier mendacities.

From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2025

Once she retired—she died in 2017—the troupe couldn’t perform pieces on that scale, but it could always come up with a few people to do the kookier early work.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 24, 2019

Then there were the kookier neon illustrations, like a ruffled tuxedo shirt of glowing white on a dry-cleaner window, or a girl jumping for joy at the prospect of going bowling.

From New York Times ● Sep. 22, 2011

Go out and have fun in the kookiest, most "woke" way possible.

From Salon ● Feb. 20, 2025

“You had Captain Dynamite who would blow himself up between games of a doubleheader, that’s probably the kookiest one,” Kayser said of the unconventional promotions.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2021

Esquivel Jingle Bells The kookiest, weirdest version I’ve ever heard, for a space-age bachelor pad, as they say in the lyrics.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 23, 2018

His character’s self-sacrificial willingness to grit his teeth through the kookiest high jinks that suburbia has to offer makes his stodgy values at least those of a consistently decent guy.

From Slate ● Apr. 4, 2018

One of the quirkiest, kookiest clans in popular culture is headed to Broadway for the holiday season: not the Addams family, which is already firmly entrenched in the theater district, but the Osmond family.

From New York Times ● Oct. 19, 2010

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word


Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Just like flashcards, but way more fun

Don't take our word for it. Leave the boring studying behind and join VocabTrainer today. You'll learn even faster and never look back.

Take me to Vocabulary.com