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cotton-headed ninny-muggins

noun

Etymology

From cotton-headed + ninny (“fool”) + muggins (“gullible person”); implied to be part of the Christmas elf dialect from the North Pole; originally from the Christmas film Elf (2003).

Definitions

  1. A whimsical insult meaning silly fool or simpleton.

    • If I could, I’d hit delete. But I’ve already hit send. it’s confirmed: Like Buddy the Elf in that old Christmas movie, I am a Cotton-Headed Ninny Muggins.
    • Don’t be a cotton headed ninny muggins.
    • When Holly got back from some of her personal training sessions, we all watched Elf. I called my sister a cotton-headed ninny-muggins, as one did.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for cotton-headed ninny-muggins. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA