hokey
/ˈhəʊki
/adjective (hokier, hokiest) North American informal
1Mawkishly sentimental: a hokey tear-jerker...
- It should have sounded hokey, a sentiment like that, but from him, it even seemed slightly impressive.
- It's difficult to describe the plot of film without making it sound hokey and mawkish.
- The fact that Mitch had gone up to the stage and sang some hokey karaoke song love song, his eyes glimpsing again and again at Jess, had only egged Lynn on.
1.1Noticeably contrived: a hokey country-western accent...
- Few things are harder to create convincingly than an album of rhyming spoken word - it's hard not to sound pretentious, derivative or hokey.
- If only the plot didn't sound so hokey.
- Although the hokey use of literary criticism gets tiring really quick, the often prescient comments about friction between contemporary world cultures and its future direction is what makes some interesting reading.
Derivatives
hokeyness
- Critics have argued younger viewers simply don't go for the old-fashioned hokiness of people singing to one another about love.
- Bovell penned the screenplay here as well, and though some of the dialogue veers on hokiness, for the most part he deserves praise for such an intricate web of characters.
- For all its hokeyness it is a brilliant film.
Origin
1940s: from hokum + -y1.
Rhymes
- foolhardily
- foolhardiness
- foolhardy
- foolish
- foolishly
- foolishness
- foolproof
- foolscap
- fool's errand
- fool's gold
- fool's mate
- fool's paradise
- fool's parsley
- fools rush in where angels fear to tread
- foosball
- fooster
- foot
- footage
- foot-and-mouth disease
- footbag
- football
- football coach
- footballer
- football game
- football hooligan