Definition of "cuckoo clock" [cuckoo clock]

• A wall or shelf clock that announces intervals of time with a sound imitative of a cuckoo's call and often with the simultaneous emergence of a mechanical bird from a small door. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Off the Kimberly exit, down Dixie Fire Brick Road onto Lucas Street, was our new, sixty-five-dollar-a-month home, standing against the night like a shabby cuckoo clock perched on stilts."
• "But at this moment the faint tick-tick of the cuckoo clock in the next room, reaching her ear, reminded her of the object of this midnight expedition of hers."
• "Eric gave me boots from Spain, 18-karat-gold earrings from Greece, a hand-carved cuckoo clock from Germany, a pair of fish paintings from Japan, a tiny white lamp from Denmark that could fold into itself when not in use."