How to Use cornball in a Sentence

cornball

1 of 2 noun

• Cloudy with a chance of cornballs.
  — Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, 26 June 2026
• Hollywood is bloody and messy, but its aims are sweet, bordering on cornball.
  — Jesse Hassenger, The Verge, 1 Aug. 2019
• The new sober influencers have convinced me that this cornball 12-step stuff isn’t for everyone.
  — Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 19 Apr. 2022
• The instructions are descriptive and exact, heavy on butter and cornball jokes.
  — Jonathan Kauffman, WSJ, 22 Oct. 2020
• There were times when life on the Slip must have felt like the kind of cornball bio-pic in which someone famous pops up every thirty seconds.
  — Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 7 Aug. 2023
• But none quite account for the return business this movie has done—the way people keep going back for another taste of its cornball rapture.
  — A.a. Dowd, Chron, 30 Dec. 2022
• Less glitz, less glamour, but also less of the gaudy cornball razzmatazz that often leads to impromptu embarrassment and painful jokes.
  — Gene Seymour, CNN, 26 Apr. 2021
• Meanwhile, customers grew to know him for his hospitable eccentricity and his cheerful cornball ads.
  — oregonlive, 13 Sep. 2023
• The desire to get back to normal results in a boring, cornball, paint-by-numbers Emmy production.
  — Kathryn Vanarendonk and Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 21 Sep. 2021
• That sounds like a bushel of cornball and might have devolved into pure ick if the director, Dave McCary, didn’t lead from the heart.
  — Manohla Dargis, The Seattle Times, 16 Aug. 2017
• The movie is built around an interview with the legendary 91-year-old actor, still vigorous and voluble, with a seize-the-day cornball glow to him.
  — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 16 Mar. 2023
• The film is about the power of storytelling, and not in the cornball, self-congratulatory sense in which that phrase is normally deployed.
  — Alison Willmore, Vulture, 30 June 2021
• Of the teenage superheroes, Jaime would be in the Eagle Fang boat — a little chaotic, spontaneous, sly, a little cornball.
  — Jordan Moreau, Variety, 11 Jan. 2022
• High-octane action, including a wickedly complex scene shot around the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, makes up for the slightly cornball script.
  — K. Thor Jensen, PCMAG, 8 June 2022
• But then, Cameron’s cutting-edge technophilia has always been married to, and complemented by, an unapologetic cornball classicism.
  — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 13 Dec. 2022
• Only an ex-Bachelor could so comfortably oscillate between cornball self-promotion and heartfelt appeals.
  — Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 19 Aug. 2021
• The cool kids, including President Barack Obama, occasionally mocked him behind his back for his cornball earnestness.
  — Ben Smith, New York Times, 22 Nov. 2020
• That sounds like a bushel of cornball and might have devolved into pure ick if the director, Dave McCary, didn't lead from the heart and wasn't adept at navigating seemingly clashing tones.
  — The New York Times, NOLA.com, 18 Aug. 2017
• That sounds like a bushel of cornball and might have devolved into pure ick if the director, Dave McCary, didn’t lead from the heart and wasn’t adept at navigating seemingly clashing tones.
  — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 27 July 2017
• But these songs don’t sound the least bit assured, partly because their sonic elements recontextualize them in the world of Western rap (fashion-rap cornball Teezo Touchdown has credits, as does JPEGMAFIA).
  — Joshua Minsoo Kim, Pitchfork, 24 Mar. 2026

cornball

2 of 2 adjective

• So why are so many vacation homes still tainted by these tired, cornball clichés?
  — Lucia Tonelli, ELLE Decor, 17 May 2019
• But the show has also kneecapped itself with scene after scene of insufferable cornball humor.
  — Daniel Payne, National Review, 20 July 2019
• Nixon's ski-jump nose, beloved by caricaturists, was a staple of the period's cornball humor.
  — Sam Tanenhaus, Esquire, 5 Apr. 2017
• Here’s how to rock the red, white, and blue this Fourth of July without any of the cornball risks or dorky potential for disaster.
  — Yang-Yi Goh, GQ, 3 July 2018
• People who know Pai describe him as an ebullient presence, given to occasional cornball humor.
  — Hamza Shaban, chicagotribune.com, 15 Dec. 2017
• That’s a particular thing, that sort of cornball comedy, relocating the ornery hillbilly or farmer to another environment that is baffling to the city people.
  — Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 25 Apr. 2018
• But while audiences may delight in the cornball chaos of, say, Sharknado, portraying recent real-world disasters through schlock is a trickier proposition.
  — Kate Knibbs, Wired, 25 Dec. 2020
• Once standoffish with press, Steely Dan became reliably gracious interview subjects, a move that when paired with their cornball stage patter, helped warm a once notoriously chilly band.
  — Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Billboard, 3 Sep. 2017
• Hollywood establishment figures don’t get sufficient credit for their humanitarian screen efforts that are easily scoffed at as cornball.
  — Armond White, National Review, 23 Oct. 2019
• With a wry chuckle, McCartney chalks up these cornball elements of his TV specials and other outings to the perils of being surrounded by yes people.
  — Sheri Linden, HollywoodReporter, 25 Feb. 2026
• Hadn’t everyone seen that cornball Jimmy Stewart vehicle, rerun on television annually during the holiday season, a few dozen times?
  — Julia M. Klein, Philly.com, 3 Nov. 2017
• Characters like Anna May Wong get reduced to single notes of inspiration, their personal lives never really dramatized by a show with too much time for Jack's cornball infidelity.
  — Darren Franich, EW.com, 29 Apr. 2020
• The drama, though action-packed and often dark, with royal torturer Richard Topcliffe (Ewen Bremner) the series’ evilest villain, is never particularly convincing, and often cornball.
  — Robert Lloyd, latimes.com, 9 July 2017
• The final episode wasn't mushy, true to Brownstein's comment at the Television Critics Association 2018 winter press tour that ending a sketch comedy show doesn't call for cornball plot developments.
  — Kristi Turnquist, OregonLive.com, 22 Mar. 2018
• 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