dad joke

noun

plural dad jokes

informal

: a wholesome joke of the type said to be told by fathers with a punchline that is often an obvious or predictable pun or play on words and usually judged to be endearingly corny or unfunny

He's seen the annual event grow from an Austin oddity to a national event and watched dad jokes, of which puns are the most obvious example, take hold in the millennial consciousness; a dad-joke-devoted Reddit board boasts more than 250,000 members.

—Peter Rubin

The dad jokes really started pouring in during the later years of Obama's presidency, when the annual turkey pardoning became fertile grounds for embarrassing the now teenage Malia and Sasha. And what better way to do that than with some corny puns about turkeys named Mac and Cheese?

—Mashable

Examples of dad joke in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The dad jokes, more than any other single element, are what keep me watching Reacher. —Chris Klimek, Vulture, 13 Mar. 2025

His son Gavin bought him a new dad joke monthly calendar for Christmas this year. —Joe Buscaglia, The Athletic, 10 Jan. 2025

Our guide, Mark Vincent from Door County Adventure Center, dropped dad jokes in between sightings of great blue herons, bald eagles, and wrens in the sedge grass. —Jacqueline Kehoe, Travel + Leisure, 23 Jan. 2025

Studies of fathers have generated some alarmist headlines over the years, and Hrdy has kindly collated them: no dad joke: fatherhood shrinks the brain; aw, nuts! —Dan Piepenbring, Harper's Magazine, 30 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1987, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for dad joke

• awoke
• baroque
• bespoke
• colloque
• convoke
• evoke
• invoke
• keystroke
• kinfolk
• kinsfolk
• menfolk
• provoke