How to Use hokum in a Sentence

hokum

noun
  • Everyone knows his story is pure hokum.
  • His new film is yet another piece of Hollywood hokum.
  • This isn’t some kind of health food store hippie hokum.
    — Tim MacWelch, Outdoor Life, 13 Mar. 2020
  • When the pre-show finally began, so did the hokum that would define the rest of the night.
    — Aisha Harris, Slate Magazine, 24 Aug. 2017
  • The film has a lot going for it, alongside a certain amount of hokum.
    — Michael Phillips, Detroit Free Press, 11 Jan. 2018
  • Is the hokum a bit thick even in the context of a showmanship special?
    — Jim McKairnes, USA TODAY, 14 Dec. 2022
  • With hokum such as this, my credulity can be counted on.
    — Kent Russell, Harper’s Magazine , 25 May 2022
  • First, the name of this blog is Science, not Fiction, which means any religious hokum is right out the door.
    — Kyle Munkittrick, Discover Magazine, 29 Oct. 2010
  • Into this world of darkness and folk hokum, in 1635, was born Francis Willughby.
    — David Holahan, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 July 2018
  • Some of the biggest peddlers of drone hokum have been elected officials.
    — Noah Shachtman, Rolling Stone, 19 Dec. 2024
  • President Biden is in part a hostage to his own campaign mythology — the blue-collar guy from Scranton — and all the hokum that goes along with it.
    — The Editors, National Review, 15 June 2021
  • 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 College Football Playoff is pure hokum, but at least its nonsense is hysterical at the same time.
    — Joseph Goodman | Jgoodman@al.com, al, 13 Nov. 2019
  • His teachings were simplistic, filled with hokum, like a 15-year-old's diary entry.
    — Craig Hlavaty, Houston Chronicle, 12 Apr. 2018
  • This is hokum, a product of a morbidly amusing photo taken of Dillinger while his body was on display at the Chicago morgue.
    — Neal Taflinger, Indianapolis Star, 31 Aug. 2017
  • Downtrodden Democrats will need to come to grips with the reality that vast swaths of the country like or, at least, accept the hokum and hatred that Trump has been peddling.
    — Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 3 Nov. 2020
  • But his true gift was providing the smoke from a campfire consecrated by holistic hokum and complex sentence structure.
    — Bernie Lincicome, chicagotribune.com, 30 June 2017
  • Set in the art world of the early 20th century, the episode neatly epitomizes the way this show dresses up grotesque supernatural hokum in period couture.
    — A.a. Dowd, Chron, 26 Oct. 2022
  • 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
  • Those final 30 or so seconds do a lot of work to cover up what is otherwise a mostly engaging piece of hokum, a grim kidnapping tale that makes a silly hash of psychology.
    — Richard Lawson, VanityFair.com, 19 Jan. 2017
  • 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
  • The appetite for such hokum and narrowness of the judgments against Jones, who falsely claimed that the 2012 elementary school shootings were a hoax and that grieving parents were actors, virtually ensure a ready supply, experts say.
    — David Bauder, Chron, 16 Oct. 2022
  • The appetite for such hokum and narrowness of the judgments against Jones, who falsely claimed that the 2012 elementary school shootings were a hoax and that grieving parents were actors, virtually ensure a ready supply, experts say.
    — David Bauder, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Oct. 2022
  • The appetite for such hokum and narrowness of the judgments against Jones, who falsely claimed that the 2012 elementary school shootings were a hoax and that grieving parents were actors, virtually ensure a ready supply, experts say.
    — David Bauder, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Oct. 2022
  • The appetite for such hokum and narrowness of the judgments against Jones, who falsely claimed that the 2012 elementary school shootings were a hoax and that grieving parents were actors, virtually ensure a ready supply, experts say.
    — David Bauder, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Oct. 2022
  • The appetite for such hokum and narrowness of the judgments against Jones, who falsely claimed that the 2012 elementary school shootings were a hoax and that grieving parents were actors, virtually ensure a ready supply, experts say.
    — David Bauder, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Oct. 2022
  • The appetite for such hokum and narrowness of the judgments against Jones, who falsely claimed that the 2012 elementary school shootings were a hoax and that grieving parents were actors, virtually ensure a ready supply, experts say.
    — David Bauder, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Oct. 2022
  • The appetite for such hokum and narrowness of the judgments against Jones, who falsely claimed that the 2012 elementary school shootings were a hoax and that grieving parents were actors, virtually ensure a ready supply, experts say.
    — David Bauder, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Oct. 2022
  • The story of Abner Doubleday inventing baseball in Cooperstown has long been dismissed as hokum.
    — Jared Diamond, WSJ, 24 June 2019
  • Greekman’s feels subtly evocative without any hokum and serves uplifting food that meshes with the California growing seasons.
    — Bill Addison, Los Angeles Times, 4 Sep. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hokum.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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