hokey

Thân thiện

A young actor delivers a hokey line in the school play.

Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Excessively sentimental or emotionally overdone: Describes something that is overly emotional in a way that seems insincere, exaggerated, or cloying.
   • Artificial, contrived, or stiff: Describes something that is not natural or genuine, often seeming awkwardly formal or forced.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:
  • The movie's ending was so hokey with its sudden reunion and dramatic music.
  • His hokey attempt at a southern accent made his speech sound unnatural and forced.
  • I find those greeting cards with cute animals and rhyming verses to be rather hokey.

Advanced Usage

• "hokey-pokey": While a separate term, it is a notable variant. It can refer to a specific dance or, informally, to deceptive behavior or nonsense.
  • The children danced the hokey-pokey at the party. (This refers to the specific dance.)
  • I'm tired of all the corporate hokey-pokey; let's just see the real numbers. (Informal, meaning nonsense or deceptive talk.)

Variants and Related Words

• Hokiness (n): The quality of being hokey.
  • The hokiness of the plot undermined the film's serious message.

Synonyms

• Maudlin: Tearfully or excessively sentimental.
• Bathetic: Characterized by a ludicrous descent from the elevated to the ordinary; overly sentimental.
• Schmaltzy: Excessively sentimental, especially in music or writing.
• Stilted: Stiff and artificially formal.
• Contrived: Deliberately created rather than arising naturally; forced.

Idioms and Phrases

• While "hokey" itself is not typically part of a standard idiom, it is often used in the phrase "hokey as all get-out" (informal) to emphasize something as being extremely corny or sentimental.
  • That old commercial is hokey as all get-out, but I still remember the jingle.

Học thuật

Adjective

1. 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
2. effusively or insincerely emotional
   • a bathetic novel
   • maudlin expressions of sympathy
   • mushy effusiveness
   • a schmaltzy song
   • sentimental soap operas
   • slushy poetry

Từ đồng nghĩa

• artificial
• contrived
• stilted