as in rustical
tiresomely obvious and unsophisticated
the show's shamelessly cornball jokes appealed to small-town America
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in hick
an awkward or simple person especially from a small town or the country
a movie about a cornball making his way through a world of cynical sophisticates
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of cornball
A.a. Dowd, Chron, 7 Feb. 2023
Seemingly the only non-conservative included in the bit was Shri Thanedar, a Democrat and state representative from Michigan, who appeared in a cornball commercial featuring people demonstrating mind-bendingly bad acting.
—oregonlive, 15 Sep. 2022
EW.com, 2 Mar. 2024
Meanwhile, customers grew to know him for his hospitable eccentricity and his cheerful cornball ads.
—oregonlive, 13 Sep. 2023
See all Example Sentences for cornball 
Adjective
Soderbergh keeps cutting around the cornball potential of the material.
—A.a. Dowd, Chron, 7 Feb. 2023
Seemingly the only non-conservative included in the bit was Shri Thanedar, a Democrat and state representative from Michigan, who appeared in a cornball commercial featuring people demonstrating mind-bendingly bad acting.
—oregonlive, 15 Sep. 2022
Noun
Ivan Reitman’s family comedy is nothing if not cornball.
—EW.com, 2 Mar. 2024
Meanwhile, customers grew to know him for his hospitable eccentricity and his cheerful cornball ads.
—oregonlive, 13 Sep. 2023
See all Example Sentences for cornball
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cornball
Noun
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Sorrentino may also be exorcising some conflicting feelings about his birthplace, which is portrayed as a vulgar, crude place populated by crooks and hicks and photographed like its paradise.—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
7 Feb. 2025
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In first grade, when a teacher called him a hick, Ciotti threw an inkwell at her.—
D. T. Max,
The New Yorker,
23 Sep. 2024
Adjective
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To gain her confidence, Arabella pretends to be Jewish (a hokey contrivance that Shakespeare would have approved of), and Indji shares the story of her banishment.—
Gal Beckerman,
The Atlantic,
13 Jan. 2025
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Cutting a long story short, a vocal minority of reactionary gamers is perturbed that a sci-fi video game features a Black samurai protagonist, despite the game’s hokey premise centering on the genetic recording of memories written to computer software.—
Lewis Gordon,
Vulture,
8 Jan. 2025
Noun
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While the aforementioned gamer creep threatens to rob us of silly confrontational television, there’s been one thing stopping them and making season three entertaining: The Traitors picked this season are dysfunctional clowns.—
Alex Abad-Santos,
Vox,
6 Feb. 2025
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There was a good joke buried in that conceit: maybe only clowns spend as much time in the makeup chair as the drag artists that have provided Roan the inspiration for her primary look.—
Chris Willman,
Variety,
3 Feb. 2025
Adjective
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The black metal bed has a minimalist design that complements rustic and industrial interiors.—
Isabel Garcia,
People.com,
15 Feb. 2025
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Oakland has a new seafood-centric bistro that performs a lovely balancing act between rustic and refined, Sirene.—
John Metcalfe,
The Mercury News,
14 Feb. 2025
Noun
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Well, the rubes just elected Donald Trump president.—
Chris Roemer,
Baltimore Sun,
8 Nov. 2024
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That’s easy: a rube, chump, or mark, whose naive optimism sets them up for betrayal.—
Jamil Zaki,
TIME,
3 Sep. 2024
Adjective
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The production gets a little corny and theatrical at times (an important prop item at the end of the play doesn’t look very real, making its impact more symbolic than visceral).—
Christopher Arnott,
Hartford Courant,
4 Feb. 2025
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By Design is the kind of film that isn’t afraid to be corny, treating Olivier and Camille’s connection as man and chair as seriously as any other relationship.—
Jourdain Searles,
The Hollywood Reporter,
31 Jan. 2025
Noun
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Mantle was the voluble hayseed from Oklahoma who could hit anything but was corrupted by the big city, and wound up undone by alcohol and knee injuries.—
Adam Gopnik,
The New Yorker,
21 June 2024
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Today, the variety shows’ wise-clown hayseeds (overalls, prosthetic teeth, silly hats, no shoes) are the ones who get all the good lines, whose material is distinctive in its political sensibility and cultural hobbyhorses.—
Rafil Kroll-Zaidi,
Harper's Magazine,
30 Mar. 2024
Noun
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Going to the Ron Burgundy–Ricky Bobby idiot well one time too many, Ferrell plays Cam Brady, a lazy, cynical longtime congressman running against a local bumpkin (Galifianakis).—
Tim Grierson,
Vulture,
4 Feb. 2025
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Carter, perhaps the most decent man to ever occupy the Oval Office, was long written off as a country bumpkin, one who perhaps unsurprisingly left office as a one-term anomaly.—
Philip Elliott,
TIME,
9 Jan. 2025
Thesaurus Entries Near cornball
Cite this Entry
“Cornball.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cornball. Accessed 22 Feb. 2025.
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