How to Use pokey in a Sentence

pokey

noun
  • Yes, that hokey-pokey. Turns out, Cage hates that song. Hates it.
    — Mike Scott, NOLA.com, 18 Jan. 2018
  • That's how Mitchell and the rest of them ended up in the federal pokey.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 18 Oct. 2017
  • Poke isn’t pronounced like something one does with a stick, or as in doing the hokey pokey.
    — Julie Jargon, WSJ, 15 Sep. 2017
  • The microbus was underpowered and a little pokey on the freeways of the '50s and '60s.
    — Ben Stewart, Popular Mechanics, 26 Apr. 2017
  • The rink is a favorite of area students and made headlines in 2015 for being the place where police killed the hokey pokey.
    — Jameelah Nasheed, Teen Vogue, 17 July 2018
  • Third-party chargers are capped to a pokey 5W charging speed.
    — Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica, 23 Oct. 2018
  • Days earlier, Mueller had asked a judge to revoke Manafort’s $10 million bail and put him in the pokey.
    — Lynn Yaeger, Vogue, 10 June 2018
  • Some are funny, some shy, some energetic, some pokey and some can be all those things in one day.
    — Washington Post, 3 Aug. 2021
  • There will also be live music, limbo, hokey pokey and races, according to the event page.
    — Briana Rice, Cincinnati.com, 28 Feb. 2020
  • Researchers discovered that puff adders in the wild waggle both their tongues and their tails to lure prey, like a prolonged and high-stakes hokey-pokey dance.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 7 Feb. 2017
  • Thirty-five at the time, the Russian immigrant went to the pokey for three years, having pleaded guilty to wire fraud, mail fraud and making threats on the phone.
    — David Segal, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2017
  • Former Uber self-driving boss Anthony Levandowski could find himself in the pokey for a spell.
    — Adam Lashinsky, Fortune, 30 July 2020
  • But the laptop's main problem is its pokey hardware performance.
    — Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica, 15 Mar. 2023
  • Six years before this drama unfolded, Beyoncé was on the other side of the awards-show hokey-pokey.
    — Paul Grein, Billboard, 19 Aug. 2019
  • When weighed down by children or packages, the bike can get a little pokey, especially when climbing uphill.
    — Andrew J. Hawkins, The Verge, 8 Aug. 2019
  • Data transfer rates are a little pokey when compared to today, around 5MBps theoretical and much less in practice.
    — Chris Wilkinson, Ars Technica, 11 Dec. 2020
  • Cage was, however, ardently expressing his deep-seated disdain -- for the hokey-pokey.
    — Mike Scott, NOLA.com, 18 Jan. 2018
  • The majority of Americans want a second special counsel appointed because of all the hokey pokey.
    — Fox News, 3 May 2018
  • But another shoe is yet to drop: next week, a different judge will sentence him on two conspiracy counts, charges that each carry a maximum of five years, which could potentially add years to his time in the pokey.
    — Lynn Yaeger, Vogue, 10 Mar. 2019
  • The tests paid off, however, and Flight Simulator 98 quelled reviewers’ complaints about pokey performance.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 26 Feb. 2023
  • Kia claims a pokey 62-mph acceleration estimate of 9.4 seconds.
    — Eric Stafford, Car and Driver, 28 Mar. 2023
  • Americans would find that powertrain pokey and inconvenient.
    — Tom Voelk, New York Times, 4 Mar. 2020
  • Not only has the tanker saga included everything from back room deals to dramatic reversals to heated Congressional hearings to military officials going to the pokey.
    — Noah Shachtman, WIRED, 5 Aug. 2010

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

Last Updated: