Adjacent Words

hokey definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: effusively or insincerely emotional; "a bathetic novel"; "maudlin expressions of sympathy"; "mushy effusiveness"; "a schmaltzy song"; "sentimental soap operas"; "slushy poetry" [syn: bathetic, drippy, hokey, maudlin, mawkish, kitschy, mushy, schmaltzy, schmalzy, sentimental, soppy, soupy, slushy]
2: artificially formal; "that artificial humility that her husband hated"; "contrived coyness"; "a stilted letter of acknowledgment"; "when people try to correct their speech they develop a stilted pronunciation" [syn: artificial, contrived, hokey, stilted]

Merriam Webster's

adjective (hokier; -est) Date: 1927 1. corny I,3 <the usual hokey melodrama> 2. obviously contrived ; phony <the plots are tricky but not hokey — Cleveland Amory> • hokeyness or hokiness noun • hokily adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (also hoky) (hokier, hokiest) US sl. sentimental, melodramatic, artificial. Derivatives: hokeyness n. (also hokiness). hokily adv. Etymology: HOKUM + -Y(2)