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Cock-and-bull story   /kɑk-ənd-bʊl stˈɔri/   Listen
Cock-and-bull story

noun
1.
An interesting but highly implausible story; often told as an excuse.  Synonyms: fairy story, fairy tale, fairytale, song and dance.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cock-and-bull story" Quotes from Famous Books



... cunning with which you have cajoled and wheedled him, with which you have deceived and fooled a foreign doctor. But you will not convince me. You will not convince Alice. I have friends in the world, though you may not be aware of it, who will not be quite so apt to believe any cock-and-bull story you may see fit to invent. That is all I have to say. To-night I tell the vicar all that I have just told you. And from this moment, please, we are strangers. I shall come into the room no more than necessity dictates. ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... he said, hesitating. "People don't like being called up for a cock-and-bull story, and what have I got to say? These gents ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... light on it!" insisted Harris. "It's thar, I tell ye, and I made sure. I don't come botherin' of ye with no cock-and-bull story like this unless I know. I held a bull's-eye light on it and it showed plain as Cape Cod Light. One of them chists got sprung, and I thought maybe I'd made a mistake when I put the light on it, but when ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... nonsense. As this is obvious nonsense I am justified in disbelieving it. As this obvious nonsense was primarily put in circulation by Mrs. Drabdump and Mr. Grodman, I am justified in disbelieving them. In short, sir, what guarantee have we that the whole tale is not a cock-and-bull story, invented by the two persons who first found the body? What proof is there that the deed was not done by these persons themselves, who then went to work to smash the door and break the locks and the bolts, and fasten up all the windows ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... you, Moll, it made me sit up hearing you like that. Y.O. said my freckles came out like a rash because I got almost pale under them. I wish I'd seen myself. Then we made the astonishing discovery that none of the other chaps had seen the parrot, in fact they say it is a cock-and-bull story, but we are sitting tight because of the phyc-thingummy. Young O. says that whatever it is he has to be in it too, because most probably it was owing to his peculiar Indian ghostiness that we saw it at all. I don't quite agree, but anyhow that's what he says, and ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... heart, even though her feelings are undoubtedly genuine? Only the other day I chanced to walk behind her along several streets and saw her stop and give money to seven or eight beggars who accosted her. She never can refuse any one who asks with a pitiful look and a pathetic cock-and-bull story. Several of them were young and strong, and quite undeserving of charity. Three, I observed, went straight to a public-house with what she had given them, and the last, a small street boy, went into fits of suppressed laughter after she had passed, and made faces at her—finishing off ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... m'sieur," was the police officer's reply, as for a few seconds he gazed upon the invalid's face, seconds that seemed hours to Hugh. He was, of course, unaware of the cock-and-bull story which his strange chauffeur had told, and feared that at any moment he might ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... come in here"—he hunted about in his pocket for the key of the cupboard—"Cyrus, I'll tell you what happened; that female across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"these people that poke their noses into other's people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland

... Heaven's sake, explain!" exclaimed the young man, impatiently. "What the foul fiend do you mean? I never heard such a cock-and-bull story ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... found a lovely maiden in a grove on the coast of Normandy. She was sitting alone, apparelled in royal silk, and weeping. Her beauty and her tears attracted the gallant knight, to whom, in response to his questions, she told a cock-and-bull story about her father having brought her, all unwilling as she was, by sea to be married to the King of France; but having been driven by a storm on the shore, she said she had landed, and then her father had taken advantage of a sudden change of wind to ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland



Words linked to "Cock-and-bull story" :   tarradiddle, tale, taradiddle, fairy story, fairytale, fib, fairy tale, song and dance, story



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