kook

Possibly from cuckoo, or alternatively from Hawaiian kūkae (“feces”), which can also refer to surfers with a lack of skill or non-locals. Likely from the TV series "77 Sunset Strip" and the character Gerald Kookston, III known as Kookie.

• enPR: ko͞ok, IPA^(key): /kuːk/
• Rhymes: -uːk

kook (plural kooks)

1. (slang, chiefly US) An eccentric, strange or crazy person.

   Synonyms: weirdo; see also Thesaurus:mad person

   • 2019 January 29, Tom Bissell, “An Anti-Facebook Manifesto”, in New York Times‎:

     The kook we will always have with us, to paraphrase Jesus, but the kooks of yore had to work to maintain their kookery and locate fellow kooks. They had to pick up their kook phone, subscribe to the kook newsletter, drive to the kook convention. Nowadays, all the kook has to do is log in to Facebook, where his feed will be enlivened by the chatter of fellow — and likely more extreme — kooks, toward which Facebook’s algorithms helpfully steer him.

2. (surfing, kiteboarding, wakeboarding) A board sport participant who has poor style or skill.

• kook out
• kookily
• kookish
• kookishness
• kookology
• kooky, kookie

• Koko, koko

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -oːk

kook

1. first-person singular present indicative of koken
2. imperative of koken