cod
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɒd/
ipa: /kɑd/
rhymes: -ɒd
homophone: cawed (cot–caught merger)
Forms: form: more cod
form: most cod
Etymology: Origin unknown. Attested in reference to a person (though not always a stupid or foolish person) from the end of the 17th century. The Oxford English Dictionary (1891) notes that a suggested link to codger is unlikely, as cod appears much earlier.
Senses: examples: text: cod psychology
text: “Illegitimi non carborundum” is a well-known example of cod Latin.
text: Dalton categorises Muse's latest composition as “cod-classical bombast”.
text: […] the director's vision has devolved from cod Orwell to riffing off bad girl art comic books and generally feeble posing.
ref: 2006 July, Kim Newman, “Ultraviolet”, in Sight and Sound, volume 16, page 78:
text: READERS of The Economist may not necessarily be familiar with the “World of Warcraft”. For those who are not, it is a cod-medieval online game in which goblins and trolls, warriors and wizards, and so on act out the fantasies of some 9m players who spend the rest of their lives in the alternative world of paper and pay-packets.
ref: 2007 August 23, “Viral and virtual: A plague in a computer game may have lessons for the real world”, in The Economist:
text: Hynkel's anti-Semitic rants (consisting of cod-German punctuated by shouts of "Juden") are terrifying, but there is no conviction behind them, just a desperate need to distract the Tomainians from his economic failures.
ref: 2021 February 5, Nicholas Barber, “The Great Dictator: The film that dared to laugh at Hitler”, in BBC:
text: In place of snappy banter, there is cod philosophy about destiny and choice, and in place of Lalo Schifrin's adrenaline-pumping classic theme, there are orchestral minor chords on the soundtrack.
ref: 2025 May 14, Nicholas Barber, “'A miserable, apocalyptic tract': Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning could be 'the feel-bad film of the summer”, in BBC:
synonyms: faux
mock
glosses: Having the character of imitation; jocular.
examples: text: Sandy: Right, right, well I'll just open the wardrobe. Oh, here, look—his wardrobe. Ha!
Julian: Ha! Oh what a naff lot!
Sandy: It is a bit cod isn't it.
ref: 1968 March 17, Kenneth Horne, Bona Rags (Round the Horne), season 4, spoken by Julian and Sandy (Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams):
text: Will you take a varder at the cartz on the feely-omi in the naf strides: the one with the bona blue ogles polarying the omi-palone with a vogue on and a cod sheitel.
ref: 1997, James Gardiner, Who's a Pretty Boy Then?, page 137:
text: Hahahahaha! @AnnaJaneCasey Vada the homi ajax, with the naff riah and the cod lally drags. Ooooo she's camp...
ref: 2016 September 18, Antony Cotton, Twitter:
synonyms: word: abysmal
word: awful
word: chronic
word: coarse
word: crap
word: crummy
word: dire
word: disagreeable
word: dismal
word: dreadful
word: foul
word: hideous
word: hopeless
word: horrendous
word: horrid
word: horrible
word: inadequate
word: incompetent
word: inelegant
word: intolerable
word: inferior
word: loathsome
word: lousy
word: miserable
word: naff
word: negative
word: odious
word: pathetic
word: peak
word: rotten
word: rubbish
word: shitawful
word: sloppy
word: terrible
word: unfavorable
antonyms: bona
glosses: Bad.
Derived terms: sense: bad
word: cody
sense: bad
english: bad, amateurish
translation: bad, amateurish
word: coddy
word: codology