Cod
To joke, to mess with someone playfully. As a verb: 'I'm only codding you' = I'm only joking. As a noun: a fool, or someone making a fool of themselves: 'he's making a right cod of himself.' Nothing to do with the fish.
Etymology
Origin uncertain. Attested in English from the late seventeenth century. The OED rules out a derivation from 'codger' on dating grounds - cod is older. The Irish use carries two senses: (i) the noun, a stupid or foolish person, often in the construction 'a right cod of himself'; (ii) the verb, to joke, to pull someone's leg. J.P. Donleavy uses the verb sense in The Ginger Man (1955): 'I thought your friend Mac was codding me that you would come.'
In a sentence
"You're only codding me - she didn't really say that, did she?"
Historical notes
Cod sits in the small Hiberno-English family of words for affectionate mockery alongside 'slagging' and 'codding'. The phrase 'I'm only codding!' is the standard Hiberno-English get-out clause after a piece of misleading information offered as a tease - the speaker's signal that the listener should not, in fact, take the previous sentence at face value. The noun and verb feel like the same word doing two jobs: the cod is the joker and what the joker creates, both at once.
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry cod n. and v. (joke / fool sense). · dictionary
- Donleavy, J.P. The Ginger Man (1955). · academic