Hoked

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Gave something an artificial, exaggerated, or overly theatrical quality
2. Made something appear phony or contrived through deliberate manipulation or ham acting
3. Endowed with a false or stagey character through affected or insincere presentation

Etymology: "Hoked" is the past tense and past participle of "hoke," a verb with a surprisingly tangled ancestry. The verb's oldest English form, "hōc" in Old English, is the source of Middle English "hoke," and it likely shares a root with "holk," meaning a hollow cavity, which suggests an early sense of digging or hollowing out. Scots "howk," meaning to dig, points the same way. The word also has a separate line of descent. In American English, "hoke" is linked to "hokum," the theatrical nonsense or contrived sentiment that entertainers fed audiences, and that is where a sense of overdone, fake showmanship comes from. In practice, the two strands have blended, so "hoked up" can mean either artificially dressed up or dug out and made to look fresh. The two senses rarely interfere with each other, so a reader usually knows which one is intended from context.