as in rustical
tiresomely obvious and unsophisticated
the show's shamelessly cornball jokes appealed to small-town America
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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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The Six Triple Eight, however, is 128 minutes of hokey dialogue, two-dimensional characterizations, and Susan Sarandon as Eleanor Roosevelt wearing false teeth straight out of a Party City going-out-of-business sale.—
Joe Reid,
Vulture,
28 Feb. 2025
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Hart despises him and his blundering height, despises the hokey sentimentality of Oklahoma!—
Stephanie Bunbury,
Deadline,
18 Feb. 2025
Noun
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Parsons called him a jealous clown, in so many words.—
Troy Renck,
The Denver Post,
15 Mar. 2025
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Who was the biggest Death of a Unicorn class clown?—
Jack Smart,
People.com,
14 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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The style is classic yet rustic, with smooth planks, a rich stain, decorative moldings along the rim, and baseboards along the bottom.—
Miles Walls,
Better Homes & Gardens,
23 Mar. 2025
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The slat design gives the set a rustic look that blends with any patio style.—
Christopher Murray,
Fox News,
21 Mar. 2025
Noun
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The latest scheme is to create a 2.5% business-to-business tax, a tax hidden in the costs of businesses so that those rubes also known as voters may not notice it.—
Reader Commentary,
Baltimore Sun,
18 Mar. 2025
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Walsh’s male fantasists—the nameless rubes of Ballyturk, the desperate suitors of Penelope, even the heartbroken father at the center of Grief Is the Thing With Feathers—get to strut and bluster and scream into the wind.—
Sara Holdren,
Vulture,
23 Feb. 2025
Adjective
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He’s beloved in the math and science wing, a big guy with a grin and graying hair who peppers lessons on polynomial functions with corny jokes.—
Stephen J. Nesbitt,
New York Times,
27 Mar. 2025
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The script is delightfully corny in just the right spots.—
Rick Mauch,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
26 Mar. 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
Cite this Entry
“Cornball.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cornball. Accessed 2 Apr. 2025.
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