hokey
[hoh-kee]
- overly sentimental; mawkish: Two glasses of wine and he gets unbearably hokey; it's hard to believe he's a highly paid executive!
- obviously contrived, especially to win popular appeal or support; phony: The hokey stories of his impoverished childhood always surface at election time.
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Origin of hokey
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for hokey
Contemporary Examples
There was the lifeless and hokey Management ($934,000 box office) and Love Happens ($22 million).
She jumped up and down and did the hokey pokey and shouted to the rooftops from it.
With their hokey humor and easily solved crises, those shows led straight into the era of Ellen and Will & Grace.
Commenting on his vanilla—some might even say “hokey”—demeanor, my wife said he reminded her of the father on Leave It to Beaver.
We used to close our meetings with a hokey phrase: “May the great master of all Scouts be with us till we meet again.”
Historical Examples
Hokey Pokey took it with many thanks, and then went on his way.
The Pig Brother and Other Fables and StoriesLaura E. Richards
By the Hokey; if Sally Jones is'nt real grit, there's no snakes.
The Portland Sketch BookVarious
I saw him some months back down at Sawyer's Forks, and by hokey!
At Whispering Pine LodgeLawrence J. Leslie
"By hokey, I don't like the looks o' that," said the old man, as he observed the armed band approaching his lonely cabin.
Brother Against BrotherJohn Roy Musick
He had scarcely opened the door when he started back in surprise, exclaiming, "By hokey, if there isn't a basket on the steps!"
Timothy Crump's WardHoratio Alger
hokey
- corny; sentimental
- contrived; phoney
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Word Origin
C20: from hokum
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for hokey
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper