cloud-cuckoo-land
Also -town, etc. Freq. with capital initials.
[tr. Gr. νεϕελοκοκκυγία (f. νεϕέλη cloud + κόκκυξ cuckoo), the name of the realm in Aristophanes's Birds (l. 819) built by the birds to separate the gods from mankind.]
a. In translations of Aristophanes' word (see above). b. A fanciful or ideal realm or domain. Also in various allusive phrases.
| 1824 H. F. Cary tr. Aristophanes' Birds ii. i. 76 What shall our city's name be?.. Cuckoocloudland. Will that do? 1874 B. H. Kennedy tr. Ibid., Cloudcuckoo⁓borough. 1899 R. Whiteing No. 5 John St. xxxi. 319 All his thinking processes fade off into the logic of Cloud Cuckoo Land. 1903 Daily Chron. 25 Sept. 3/7 Our new school of economists (sort of cloud-cuckoo-town). 1908 Times Lit. Suppl. 10 Dec. 458/3 His ideal state is a true Cloud-Cuckoo-Town. 1925 Cabell Beyond Life 30 Wycherley had the saving grace to present his men and women as trammelled by the social restrictions of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land alone. 1925 R. Graves Welchman's Hose 20 Kingfishers, when they die, To far Cloud-Cuckoo pastures fly. 1939 J. B. Priestley Let People Sing 390 Sir George Denberry-Baxter was now Governor-general of some distant dominion of Cloud-Cuckoodom. 1950 G. Barker News of World 17 Turn back to never-never Cloud-cuckoo, happy, far-off land. 1964 Economist 16 May 741/2 They weigh the evidence and give their judgment in what seems..a cloud⁓cuckooland. |