to hoke up
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
inventar
- She tried to hoke up an excuse for being late, but no one believed her.
Examples
-
They always hoke up some wild tale to entertain their friends.
-
He managed to hoke up a story that explained his absence.
-
Don't hoke up a story just to impress your friends.
-
She always hokes up excuses for being late.
-
He managed to hoke up an incredible story about how he traveled to the moon.
-
She tried to hoke up an excuse for missing the meeting, claiming she was stuck in traffic.
-
They always hoke up humorous tales about their adventures during family gatherings.
Synonyms
972
3.2
Invent a story or excuse that is not true
181
3.2
To make up a story or excuse that is not true
46
6.0
Make up a story or excuse to trick people
37
5.6
Invent a story or excuse to trick people
11
9.0
Say things that are not true to make people believe you
5
5.3
To make a story seem better than it really is
5
6.5
Tell real events or people as made-up stories by changing details
4
9.9
Make up facts with no proof, often as a weak excuse
4
8.6
To make a false story to accuse someone unfairly
1
6.8
To tell a long made-up or exaggerated story
1
4.8
Make up and tell a tale, often to entertain or avoid trouble
1
9.6
To try to trick someone by saying things that are not true
To make up a false reason to avoid blame
To tell someone a false story to impress or trick them
To trick or cheat someone by lying
Change facts on purpose to make something seem better
To make a story sound more exciting or important than it really is
To tell a story in a way that makes what happened sound bigger or not true
To make something seem more sentimental or fake than it really is
Antonyms
How False
∞
1.3
50
7.3
- Informal
46
6.0
258
3.1
19
6.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
hoke + up
The particle 'up' commonly creates senses of completion/creation (compare cook up, make up), so there is a partial cue that something is being fabricated or intensified. However, the base 'hoke' (to portray sentimentally) does not directly mean 'invent' or 'fabricate', and the specific sense 'invent a story/excuse' is not fully predictable from the literal constituents without prior exposure. Therefore the expression is only partially transparent to learners.
Etymology
Hoke up may come from the same idea as 'cooking up' a story: the image is of quickly putting hoke and up together to make something that sounds good but is not true. That's why it means 'to invent a story'.