hoke
Americanverb (used with object)
noun
verb
Etymology
Origin of hoke
Explanation
To hoke is to overact or exaggerate, the way the star of your school's play might hoke up her death scene, staggering around the stage and moaning before collapsing gracefully to the ground. Hoke was originally theatrical slang, coined around 1935 from an earlier slang term, hokum, "melodramatic acting." You can use hoke as a noun or a verb for anything exaggerated or insincere, although the adjective hokey, "corny or phony," is more common. If you prefer understated, realistic movies, you're going to be annoyed by filmmakers who hoke up their productions with car chases, cartoonish action sequences, and over-the-top performances.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Byington lists "hoke" as "an affirmative particle" in his Dictionary of the Choctaw Language.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hot on Columbia's heels, seven other record companies got top performers in both barn and ballroom categories to record it; most called on professional lyricists to hoke up the song's meager words.
From Time Magazine Archive
Take a walk through the Hall of Fame gallery, where the elect are commemorated with an all-American mixture of hoke and majesty.
From Time Magazine Archive
Oh, go hoke your sed—I mean soak your head!
From Frank Merriwell at Yale by Standish, Burt L.
The best to my symple dyscrecon whyche is fysshynge: called Anglynge wyth a rodde: and a lyne and an hoke.
From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 4 by Mabie, Hamilton Wright
She is best when she accompanies herself on the vibrant mouth-bow or guitar, and least satisfying when her own pure style is hoked up with electric guitar and bass.
From Time Magazine Archive
It has a catchy tune, but is too hoked up to be funny.
From Time Magazine Archive
Stem, West Germany's largest illustrated weekly, hoked up a photo collage of Carter holding a gas nozzle to his head.
From Time Magazine Archive
Perhaps the Sadat trip was such effective the ater, because it was an event of enough inherent size and poignance to live up to TV's dramatic requirements without needing to be hoked up.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then shall we not haue our clothes and lynnen hoked out at our wyndowes as well by day as by night.
From The Rogues and Vagabonds of Shakespeare's Youth Awdeley's 'Fraternitye of vacabondes' and Harman's 'Caveat' by Awdeley, John
But the joking and the hoking do not seriously impair the moviegoer's sense that he is sharing in the execution of a great and significant event.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the title ballad, for instance, he'll hold a long note without hoking it up, without forsaking its texture or personality.
From Time Magazine Archive
Not above hoking a bit, Kurtz last fall led the band while Benny Goodman played Dizzy Fingers, then conducted an unrehearsed hot chorus of Anchors Aweigh.
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
