adjective
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informal (esp of rooms) small and cramped
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without speed or energy; slow
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of poky
Explanation
Someone who moves very slowly is poky. When you try to take your poky dog on a jog, she'll stop to sniff every bush and blade of grass along the way. Wasting time, dawdling, or being annoying and boring are all ways to get called poky: "I need a new computer — my poky old laptop takes forever to do anything." In Britain this adjective is sometimes used in a completely opposite way, to mean "speedy" or "quick to accelerate": "Her car is much more poky than it looks!"
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:
But by the poky standards of corporate restaurant culture, the response to the cheese-pull moment really did represent a miracle of nimble pivoting.
From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2025
In a world of cautious Catalans and poky Petroffs, the King’s Gambit can guarantee an interesting outing.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 17, 2023
Almost all runners, whether veterans or newcomers, poky or fleet, youthful or antique, share one bond.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 19, 2022
Sometimes you cut your finger on a poky throne.
From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2022
I didn’t need to carry that doggone picture around, this wasn’t how I remembered Momma anyway, Momma was always excited and jumpy, not sad and poky like this little girl.
From "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis
True, one wall was mirrored, but it fooled no eyes, and the small dark stage and square of parquet dance floor made the space feel even pokier.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 16, 2022
The Force Awakens is being seen at weird, sic-fi-like times of the day – 3am! 5am! – in as many as eight screens per multiplex, forcing other movies into split screenings and smaller, pokier rooms.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 22, 2015
If Palin has shrewdly anticipated the Tea Party's rise, the mechanics of her operation are a little pokier.
From Time ● Dec. 9, 2010
Mostly, though, the gizmo felt like a twist on the Kindle formula, not a departure from it — and while it may have been fancier, it was also pokier and glitchier.
From Time ● Nov. 23, 2010
Mother will be disappointed, and everything will be duller and pokier than ever...”
From The Fortunes of the Farrells by Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.
Natives of Fife and British Columbia respectively, they are musicians familiar with wide open spaces who are also capable of sounding as if their work was spawned from the world's pokiest garage.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 29, 2010
These stadiums are small by American standards: The Gtech, home to Brentford FC and the pokiest of all, holds just over 17,000 fans, most of them season-ticket holders.
From Washington Post
In this, her opening show, she returns to what must be the pokiest spot in the prairies, where the chief attraction is an indoor mall with an outdoor escalator.
From Time Magazine Archive
The kinks are there but the pace is lethargic, as if the film were moving on Detroit's pokiest assembly line.
From Time Magazine Archive
I do think waiting for a steamer is the horridest, pokiest performance in the world!
From Patty's Success by Wells, Carolyn
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.
