hokey joke
- noun
- /ˈhoʊki dʒoʊk/
- Informal
:
chiste cursi
- The comedian's act was full of hokey jokes that relied on simple puns and old clichés.
Examples
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He always tells a hokey joke at family gatherings to make everyone roll their eyes.
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She laughed at his hokey joke, even though she usually found them silly.
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I told a hokey joke at the party.
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Why do people love hokey jokes?
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He always tells a hokey joke at family gatherings to make everyone roll their eyes.
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She laughed at his hokey joke, even though she usually found them silly.
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The comedian's act was full of hokey jokes that relied on simple puns and old clichés.
Synonyms
2
3.8
A silly, old-fashioned joke that is too easy to guess
1
8.0
A joke that is so bad it makes people show annoyance
A silly, overly sentimental joke or remark
Antonyms
- Literature
1
8.4
Funny plays or films that use clever, polite jokes to make fun of rich people's manners
How Corny
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is transparently compositional: 'hokey' (artificial, exaggerated, corny) directly modifies 'joke' (an amusing remark), so the overall meaning 'a corny/silly joke' is predictable from the parts. Although 'hokey' is colloquial, the adjective+noun construction is standard and cross-linguistically familiar, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Hokey joke may come from old, cheap stage shows where the word hokey was used for fake, obvious acts that used simple tricks to make people laugh. So, a hokey joke now means a joke that is 'corny' or 'silly' rather than truly funny.