as in nonsense
language, behavior, or ideas that are absurd and contrary to good sense
a movie about the disaster that's pure Hollywood hokum
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of hokum
Trying this out is part of coffee testing's scientific method, but the insistence on 175 degrees also read like marketing hokum.
—
Joe Ray, WIRED, 17 Dec. 2019
But between all the hokum, Ackles and Padalecki's chemistry (both on and off screen) is what truly kept the engine running.
—EW.com, 30 Sep. 2024
The result was a pageant of fight choreography, wooden romance and hypermasculine hokum that soon entered the annals of so-bad-it’s-good camp classics.
—Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2024
The movie’s ending is shameless hokum — global viewers tearfully applaud Truman’s escape into unspecified reality.
—Armond White, National Review, 2 Aug. 2023
See All Example Sentences for hokum
Joe Ray, WIRED, 17 Dec. 2019
But between all the hokum, Ackles and Padalecki's chemistry (both on and off screen) is what truly kept the engine running.
—EW.com, 30 Sep. 2024
The result was a pageant of fight choreography, wooden romance and hypermasculine hokum that soon entered the annals of so-bad-it’s-good camp classics.
—Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2024
The movie’s ending is shameless hokum — global viewers tearfully applaud Truman’s escape into unspecified reality.
—Armond White, National Review, 2 Aug. 2023
See All Example Sentences for hokum
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hokum
Noun
-
But when real users interact with it, the system collapses, generating nonsense or failing to handle inputs that deviate from the demo script.—
Albert Lie,
Forbes.com,
4 Apr. 2025
-
Slapping down Putin should mean something, but that pronouncement, like everything Trump utters, is undercut by him spouting nonsense, including about a third term, which his press secretary laughed off yesterday.—
New York Daily News Editorial Board,
New York Daily News,
1 Apr. 2025
Noun
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The property also grows its own herbs, greens, nuts, berries, and edible flowers.—
Bianca Salonga,
Forbes,
6 Jan. 2025
-
Focus on whole foods like fruits, leafy green vegetables, fatty fish, nuts, and seeds.—
Lindsay Curtis,
Health,
5 Jan. 2025
Noun
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The organization also sampled 25 different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organic compounds that form when oil, wood or garbage burns.—
Corinne Purtill,
Los Angeles Times,
28 Mar. 2025
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Hazardous waste was being dumped into landfills along with household garbage and was often incinerated, which in turn sent the toxic materials into the atmosphere.—
Julia Jacobo,
ABC News,
26 Mar. 2025
Noun
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The site was first excavated beginning in 1995, and in 2018, scientists began collecting, analyzing and radiocarbon dating fossils unearthed from El Gigante rubbish piles.—
GrrlScientist,
Forbes,
13 Mar. 2025
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Last year, a dumpster diver in Hudson, New York, stumbled upon an extraordinary find: An 18th-century pen-and-ink sketch by English portraitist George Romney was hidden amid the rubbish.—
Eli Wizevich,
Smithsonian Magazine,
28 Feb. 2025
Noun
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American Airlines is giving Midwesterners a new way to escape the winter blahs.—
Brandon Withrow,
Travel + Leisure,
20 Feb. 2025
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The post-election blahs are endemic across the big three cable news outlets, but the viewership numbers of individual networks can drop farther when the candidate seen as their ideological opposite wins.—
Rick Porter,
The Hollywood Reporter,
7 Dec. 2024
Noun
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These deaths come on the heels of the equally bizarre and jarring death of Adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) which brings us to four adult survivors dead, though Adult Travis died offscreen (sparking a really fascinating mystery that ended in sheer stupidity and disappointment).—
Erik Kain,
Forbes.com,
5 Apr. 2025
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Also helpful is the show’s other winning quality: an enthusiastic embrace of its own stupidity.—
Nicholas Quah,
Vulture,
25 Mar. 2025
Noun
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Sam apologized awkwardly, trying covertly to swipe beneath her chin, checking for drool and feeling like the world’s schlubiest schlub for struggling to tear her eyes from this stranger when the love of her life had dumped her an hour earlier.—
Maureen Lee Lenker,
EW.com,
12 Feb. 2025
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Over time, drool evolved in the 19th century as a more specific term for saliva spilling or dripping from the mouth.—
Erik Kain,
Forbes,
13 Dec. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Hokum.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hokum. Accessed 8 Apr. 2025.
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