as in nonsense
language, behavior, or ideas that are absurd and contrary to good sense
stories about the inn being haunted are just a lot of hooey
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of hooey
Cinderella Man is unalloyed emotional manipulation, and while the cast all dig into the maudlin hooey — Paul Giamatti is especially good as the crusty trainer — nothing here has the spark of real life.
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Will Leitch, Vulture, 22 Aug. 2025
The old line about the 28 gauge having a square load is hooey.
—Ron Spomer, Outdoor Life, 11 Dec. 2019
Indeed, some devices are more powerful than others, and a few are just plain hooey.
—Kaleigh Werner, Footwear News, 3 Sep. 2019
But as comforting as a toddy may be, the notion of a dose of booze as a cold cure has always struck me as a load of hooey.
—M. Carrie Allan, charlotteobserver, 23 Jan. 2018
The scene where Skerrett has a highland fling with a blond, bearded hunk is more than a wee bit full of hooey.
—David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Jan. 2018
There was a whole lot of narrative hooey to explain the theme, which mostly had to do with caterpillars becoming butterflies, girls becoming women, et cetera.
—Vanessa Friedman, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2017
Contrary to the previous load of hooey dispensed by Junior and the first family, this dude was not a translator.
—Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 18 July 2017
And that 38 percent believes accusations that Trump's campaign conspired with Russian hackers and spies to influence the election's outcome -- and the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the election -- are nothing but hooey.
—Douglas Perry, OregonLive.com, 15 June 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hooey
Noun
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That rule is nonsense — especially with two applicants who pretty clearly spend most of their time in Tallahassee, and two who work in Lakeland.—
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But the residency rule is nonsense.—
Noun
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The next slide showed a mouthwatering array of meats, cheeses, crudite and nuts set for snacking on, along with bottles of Haack's champagne line, Clé Cachée, chilling behind an array of glasses.—
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For instance, nuts, seeds, nut butters, and chocolate are more prone to oxidation, which can lead to rancid flavors or a gritty texture.—
Noun
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Installed on the former garbage dump bounded by Sunset, Lewis, Western and Glen Flora avenues, there are now 20,000 solar panels.—
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Rescuers retrieved eight people alive and were searching for the missing still trapped after a huge mound of garbage and debris collapsed on them in the village of Binaliw in Cebu city, police said.—
Noun
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In other words, our complexion is looking pallid, our skin is dry, and our overall appearance is just a little blah at the moment.—
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Instead of layers upon layers of neutral greige tones that simply feel blah, embrace contrast, rich tones, surfaces with a patina, and items that tell a story.—
Noun
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Piles of human scraps offer a bottomless buffet to wildlife, and to access that bounty, animals need to be bold enough to rummage through human rubbish but not so bold as to become a threat to people.—
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Helga once wrestled down a drunk fisherman in the Café, a man of above-average size, and then threw him out like a piece of rubbish; Jens thus transfers most of his weight automatically to her; who is this kid, by the way?—
Noun
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By this point in the MonsterVerse, though, the lore and silliness is verging on becoming an outright bug rather than a feature, and even the kaiju action seems oddly devoid of scale or stakes — dumb fun, but the dumb-to-fun ratios are off.—
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The show combines the world-building vibes of BoJack Horseman with the silliness of Bob’s Burgers, and tops the whole thing off with the musical stylings of a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend — all wrapped in family-friendly packaging.—
Noun
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In one image—a favorite of mine—a man lies on an expanse of sand, cradling a smiling child, whose drool is pooling on the man’s shirtless chest.—
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Lotte looks down at drips of drool on the green rubber mat that covers her desk.—
Noun
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So please excuse my ignorance and stupidity here, but.—
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That’s how stupidity often is—causing problems, but also presenting opportunities.—
Cite this Entry
“Hooey.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hooey. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026.
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