cuckoo's nest

[Romel Panzer]

If somebody can explain the meaning of : " To fly over/into the cuckoo's nest." I've read somwhere long ago that cuckoos don't make their own nests. How come this idiom/saying.

[Ouisch]

"Cuckoo's nest" is usually used as a slang expression to mean a mental hospital or padded cell. Booby hatch, funny farm, nut house are all synonyms.

[Tdol]

It's not an idiom. It's the title of a book

[Ouisch]

It's not an idiom. It's the title of a book

Technically speaking, the book took its title from a children's rhyme/finger game:

Wire, Brier, Limber Lock
Three Geese in a Flock
One Flew East
One Flew West
And one flew over the cuckoos nest!
O-U-T spells out
Goose swoops down and plucks you out!


But "cuckoo's nest" is often used as a (not necessarily politically correct) synonym for a mental hospital.

[MrPedantic]

As a footnote:

"Going cuckoo" is a non-serious way of saying "going slightly and harmlessly mad".

MrP