What does hokey mean?
Hokey is an informal adjective for something so sentimental, sweet, or affected that it seems contrived or overly cute. In American English especially, it typically criticizes greeting-card sentiments, romance stories, idealized family scenes, or other expressions whose sincerity is judged to be excessive. Hokey is stronger and more dismissive than simply sentimental: a sentimental treatment may be sincere and effective, whereas a hokey treatment is regarded as artificial, mawkish, or calculated to provoke an immediate emotional response. The word also occurs in British English, though it is most strongly associated with informal North American usage. It is usually used in criticism rather than as praise. Because its main sense is evaluative, hokey depends on context: a deliberately old-fashioned valentine message might be called hokey, while earnest contemporary art might instead be described as sentimental without that implication. The word is a shortened relative of the older, rhyming hokey-poky, whose origin remains uncertain.
adjectiveOverly sentimental, sweet, or affected in a way that seems contrived or mawkish.
- Excessively sentimental, sweet, or affected in a way that seems contrived, mawkish, or overly cute.
"The greeting cards were filled with hokey messages about everlasting love."
"The film's hokey account of young love was difficult to take seriously."
"Her greeting card was so hokey that we laughed instead of being touched."
Hokey is the pared-down version of the more playful “hokey-poky,” a phrase whose original origin remains a mystery.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of hokey
Hokey developed during the nineteenth century from the longer expression hokey-poky, which was already used to characterize contrived or excessively sentimental things. The original source of hokey-poky is uncertain, and no generally accepted derivation has been established. The shortened form hokey eventually became established as an independent adjective for exaggerated sentimentality.
Related word forms
How hokey is actually used
Informal and generally dismissive, though some speakers use it playfully to describe deliberately old-fashioned or exaggerated sentiment. It is normally more critical than the neutral word sentimental.
Easily confused with hokey
Both can describe exaggerated sentimentality, but hokey is the independent shortened adjective, while hokey-poky is the longer rhyming expression from which it developed.