hokey

[ hoh-kee ]

adjective

, hok·i·er, hok·i·est.

1. overly sentimental; mawkish:

   Two glasses of wine and he gets unbearably hokey; it's hard to believe he's a highly paid executive!

   Synonyms: mushy, goopy, cloying, melodramatic, maudlin, corny

2. obviously contrived, especially to win popular appeal or support; phony:

   The hokey stories of his impoverished childhood always surface at election time.

   Synonyms: spurious, sham, counterfeit, artificial, false, fake

hokey

/ ˈhəʊkɪ /

adjective

1. corny; sentimental
2. contrived; phoney

Other Words From

• hokey·ness hoki·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of hokey¹

First recorded in 1945–50; hok(um) + -y ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of hokey¹

C20: from hokum

Example Sentences

I know that sounds hokey, but it’s very real to my generation that improving the lives of others matters.

From Time

The founder’s wealth is mostly vested in his creation, but over the past year, he has also been gifted so-called “petcoins” as part of a hokey marketing stunt.

From The Daily Beast

I know it sounds hokey, but if you … I know maybe at times you believe that working really hard and doing well may not get you there, but I think today it should.

From Ozy

There’s a hokey down-home humor of Cal sputtering at his horse, and his hapless deputy.

From Washington Post

There are all sorts of hokey things that allow people to use their PR budgets to buy virtue but aren’t really having the impact.

From MIT Technology Review

More hokey than the inspired objects recalled by the curators: A frumpy teddy bear.

From The Daily Beast

But could something quite sensible lie behind this hokey-sounding separation cleanse?

From The Daily Beast

By now, everyone knows how to do the Republican presidential hokey pokey: You put your right foot in.

From The Daily Beast

There was the lifeless and hokey Management ($934,000 box office) and Love Happens ($22 million).

From The Daily Beast

She jumped up and down and did the hokey pokey and shouted to the rooftops from it.

From The Daily Beast

Here is the poorer Italian colony; organ-grinders, ice-cream-barrow-men, "hokey-pokey" sellers, and their like.

From Project Gutenberg

They both laughed, feeling like mischievous children who had played a successful trick on the hokey-pokey man.

From Project Gutenberg

Hokey Pokey stepped lightly forward, and dropped the round loaf down the great red throat.

From Project Gutenberg

"Hokey, dokey," said Ishie and crawled out of the narrow aperture with the agility of a monkey.

From Project Gutenberg

He had scarcely opened the door when he started back in surprise, exclaiming: "By hokey, if there isn't a basket on the steps!"

From Project Gutenberg