hokum

Noun

hokum (usually uncountable, plural hokums)

1. (countable, informal, uncountable, usually) (An instance of) meaningless nonsense with an outward appearance of being impressive and legitimate.
   • Recently that publication [Collier's Weekly] has been filling its readers with the good old hokum about red likker and its steady disappearance, and if what has been offered be but half true, beer, light wine and all of the other beverages which have been tabooed by law, are on their way to that...1923 May 15, “Prohibition in Springfield”, in Jere L. Sullivan, editor, The Mixer and Server: Official Journal of the Hotel and Restaurant Employes’ International Alliance and Bartenders’...
   • Being in a mood of constructive criticism, I suggest that all future student conferences be made strictly social affairs. All addresses, forum discussions, patriotic service, and other hocums, as such, shall be done away with. Outside of a handful of persons, who either had to or did not know any...1926, The Chinese Students’ Monthly, volume 22, Detroit, Mich.: Chinese Students' Alliance in the United States of America, →OCLC, section III, page 66, column 2

   Synonyms:

   bunkum, absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin, apple grease, applesauce, bafflegab, balderdash, balls, baloney

2. (countable, informal, uncountable, usually) (An instance of) excessively contrived, hackneyed, or sentimental material in a film, television programme, theater production, etc.
   • The majority of the twenty-six stunts described in this volume belong to a species of so-called hokum acts derived from the professional stage and handed down through several generations of actors.1905, Harry L[ee] Newton, “Crazy Stunts by Harlan Tarbell [advertisement]”, in A Bundle of Burnt Cork Comedy: Original Cross-fire Conversations, Gags, Retorts, Minstrel Monologues and Stump Speeches...
   • Every experienced playwright, every manager, every stage director, every intelligent actor who has passed his novitiate, knows of things that always have received a certain definite response. Many of these have been formulated. In the sad, glad days of prosperous melodrama they were known as...1911 November 25, Hartley Davis, “The Play and the Public”, in Lyman Abbott, editor, The Outlook, volume 99, New York, N.Y.: Outlook Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 767
3. (countable, informal, usually) A film, television programme, theater production, etc., containing excessively contrived, hackneyed, or sentimental material.
   • [H]e [Stanley Baker] was still churning out the kind of Boy's Own hokums and dreary international espionage thrillers that defined that bygone era.2004, Julian Upton, “Sir Stanley Baker: The Outsider”, in Fallen Stars: Tragic Lives & Lost Careers (Critical Vision Book), Manchester: Headpress, →ISBN, part 3 (Final Acts), page 136
4. (usually) A genre of blues song or music, often characterized by sexual innuendos or satire.
   • [D]uring the 'twenties, jazz developed from an infrequent ‘hokum’ music in a few vaudeville acts to a household commodity.1956, Marshall W[inslow] Stearns, “The Jazz Age Begins”, in The Story of Jazz, paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, published 1970, →ISBN, page 153
   • As a result a hybrid music, ‘hokum’, became popular. It owed much to ‘Georgia Tom’ Dorsey, Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy, and the first recordings in the idiom appeared around 1929. Many recordings by The Famous Hokum Boys, the Hokum Trio, The Hokum Boys and similar groups were recorded by 1930....1985, Paul Oliver, “Black Music: ‘Sales Tax on It’: Race Records in the New Deal Years”, in Stephen W. Baskerville, Ralph Willett, editors, Nothing Else to Fear: New Perspectives on America in the...