nutty as a fruitcake

See also: nutty as a fruit cake

English

Alternative forms

• nutty as a fruit cake

Etymology

First use appears c. 1911 or 1912. See cite below.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adjective

nutty as a fruitcake (not comparable)

1. (simile, colloquial) Behaving in an eccentric, foolish, or kooky manner; very nutty.
   • 1912, G. Graham (publisher), The Saturday Evening Post - Volume 185, Part 1, page 10:

     ... and assuming that the defendant's Aunt Jane, in Wilkes-Barre, was as nutty as a fruitcake, and his grandfather, in Oskaloosa, had to wear cotton in his ears ...

   • 2003, William Safire / NY Times News Service, "Fruitcake: A word that gets the US Congress to call the cops", Taipei Times, 10 Aug, p. 9,

     Eugene O'Neill, in his 1914 play, The Movie Man, coined a memorable simile: "We sure are as nutty as a fruitcake or we wouldn't be here."

Synonyms

• barmy, crazy, daffy, dotty, loopy, mad, wacky, zany

References

• "nutty as a fruitcake" in the Dictionary.com Unabridged, v1.0.1, Lexico Publishing Group, 2006.