the real McCoy
5
7.8
- idiom
- Informal
:
lo auténtico
- They're the real McCoy.
- distinguish the real McCoy
- the real McCoy, all right
- go for the real McCoy
And when I get put in those situations, people see that like, bro, I'm, I am the Real McCoy.
- And when I get put in those situations, people see that like, bro, I'm, I am the Real McCoy.
- But how can you as a non expert in animal tracking, assess if someone is full of shit or the Real McCoy?
Examples
-
This antique painting is the real McCoy, not a reproduction.
-
"Thing is," he says after a while, "now they say they want me to lay on a humongous press conference to demonstrate they're the real McCoy."
Fiction book (1999) -
You think it's the real McCoy?
-
This must be the real McCoy.
-
That's the real McCoy all right.
-
When she saw the craftsmanship, she knew it was the real McCoy.
-
He insisted that the watch he bought was the real McCoy and not just a replica.
Synonyms
102
3.8
A thing that is not fake and is exactly as expected
18
4.2
A thing that is original and not a fake
6
7.7
A person or thing that is the original and not a copy
Antonyms
How Authentic
Surface Forms
Morphology
the + real + McCoy
The adjective 'real' clearly signals genuineness, so part of the meaning is recoverable from the constituents. However 'McCoy' is a proper name with no literal semantic contribution and the fixed phrase relies on an idiomatic/historical reference, so the full meaning ('the genuine article') is not reliably predictable by a B1 learner who only knows the words.
Etymology
The real McCoy may come from an inventor named McCoy who made a machine that worked much better than the cheap copies, so people asked only for his original product. So today the real McCoy means 'genuine' or the true thing.