POKES Synonyms: 352 Similar and Opposite Words

pokes 1 of 3

noun (1)

plural of poke

as in jabs

a quick thrust please stop giving the cat pokes while it's trying to sleep

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as in blows

a hard strike with a part of the body or an instrument you'd better shut up if you don't want a poke on the nose

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as in insults

an act or expression showing scorn and usually intended to hurt another's feelings the constantly bickering husband and wife seem unable to let five minutes pass without an exchange of gratuitous pokes

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pokes

2 of 3

noun (2)

plural of poke, chiefly Southern & Midland

as in pouches

a container made of a flexible material (as paper or plastic) the old warning against buying a pig in a poke

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pokes

3 of 3

verb

present tense third-person singular of poke

as in protrudes

to extend outward beyond a usual point saw his head poking through the window

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as in interferes

to interest oneself in what is not one's concern told him to stop poking into other people's business

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as in drags

to move or act slowly just poked around all morning and didn't accomplish much

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as in crawls

to move slowly they were just poking along home

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of pokes

Noun

At about 17 seconds, the driver’s leg pokes from the car and steps onto the deck of the bridge. — Eric Adler, Kansas City Star, 21 July 2026 Earlier, authorities blocked access to excerpts of Goktas' show, including pokes at Erdogan, that were uploaded onto social media. — ABC News, 2 July 2026 If your everyday bra is worn out, replace it with this scalloped bra that provides padded support — without uncomfortable underwire that digs and pokes. — Isabel Garcia, PEOPLE, 3 June 2026 Then in the second, Mattias Samuelsson was allowed to take multiple pokes at Jeremy Swayman before Geekie clobbered him. — Steve Conroy, Boston Herald, 24 Apr. 2026 Privacy may struggle within a buzzing neighborhood as the Sun in your contemplative 12th house pokes indulgent Jupiter in your 3rd House of Messages. — Tarot.com, Chicago Tribune, 5 Apr. 2026 Pepsi has for decades taken pokes at rival Coke in an endless array of commercials, but this time, the youth-skewing cola company really means business. — Brian Steinberg, Variety, 29 Jan. 2026 A lot of times, these hot-button issues that are pressed, those little pokes, are more nuanced than they’re portrayed. — Jackie Strause, HollywoodReporter, 19 Jan. 2026 In the hands of the right provider, filler can enhance and even transform your face with just a few strategic pokes. — Kara Nesvig, Allure, 11 Nov. 2025

Verb

Natural light pokes through the windows, adding a trademark freshness to an indoor coliseum. — Alec Lewis, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2026 Adults’s Gen-Z characters tend to see their comforts as transient, their identities as mutable, and seriousness as an annoying obligation, all of which the second season pokes at a bit. — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 27 Aug. 2026 Even in the bathrooms, the toilet and bidet are concealed inside a kind of Travertine bench and the showerhead pokes out from a monolithic stone slab. — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 4 Aug. 2026 This is strong language, which pokes at our tribal memory of gasoline shortages from the 1970’s. — George Calhoun, Forbes.com, 31 July 2026 Perched on a finger of land that pokes into Lebanon, Metula is usually crowded with tourists this time of year. — Tal Shalev, CNN Money, 23 June 2026 The self-aware series pokes fun at the teenage superhero subgenre, toying with the way superpowers interfere with daily life. — Skyler Trepel, Entertainment Weekly, 20 June 2026 Cloudy and rainy conditions prevail throughout the morning, then in the afternoon the sun pokes through with calm winds. — Kendrick Calfee june 16, Kansas City Star, 16 June 2026 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander apparently isn’t amused by a new board game that pokes fun at the Oklahoma City Thunder star’s reputation for garnering foul calls at the hint of contact by an opposing player. — Los Angeles Times, 29 May 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for pokes

Noun

The artist’s body of work includes jabs at consumerism, materialism, logomania and high-low dressing.

— Rosemary Feitelberg, Footwear News, 10 Sep. 2026
Inform your wife that the verbal jabs hurt you as much as the physical blows did.

— Abigail Van Buren, Mercury News, 2 Sep. 2026

Definition of jabs

Noun

Their failure was perceived as part of a pattern of significant blows to union power during the Reagan era.

— Vikram Murthi, IndieWire, 9 Sep. 2026
Zeller sets this up ably by incorporating the sledgehammer blows of the builder hired by Toby into percussive passages of Volker Bertelmann’s ominous score.

— David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 8 Sep. 2026

Definition of blows

Noun

Films, pouches and other lightweight packaging can be difficult and expensive to collect, transport and sort, while multilayer constructions and contamination limit the material’s recycling options.

— Alexandra Harrell, Footwear News, 14 Sep. 2026
Fewer than one-third of poll respondents said nicotine pouches represent the biggest threat to kids.

— Ascend Agency, New York Daily News, 11 Sep. 2026

Definition of pouches

Verb

Anything that protrudes above the shallow, insulating snow cover is more prone to being damaged by the cold and wind or eaten by wildlife, said plant ecologist Anne Bjorkman of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

— ABC News, ABC News, 25 Aug. 2026
Other animals on-site include a stable full of horses and Cowboy the tortoise, who is about the size of a lawnmower and whose head protrudes from what looks like a Venus flytrap made of bone.

— Emma Madden, Los Angeles Times, 21 Aug. 2026

Definition of protrudes

Verb

But as China’s 2018 detention of two Canadian citizens after Canada arrested a Huawei executive showed, the party readily interferes in the legal system when important interests are at stake.

— Mark Jia, Foreign Affairs, 7 Aug. 2026
Here’s when to watch and how to catch the best views before bright moonlight interferes.

— Julia Gomez, USA Today, 1 July 2026

Definition of interferes

Verb

M’Benga drags him into a private room to discuss the situation, and whether or not Reeger is driven by revenge, not reason.

— Keith Phipps, Vulture, 10 Sep. 2026
New York — The Iran war has saddled Americans with a massive energy bill that continues to mount as the conflict drags on.

— Matt Egan, CNN Money, 8 Sep. 2026

Definition of drags

Verb

Hairy-nosed wombat births are hard to spot, as after about a 30-day pregnancy, the joey crawls into its mother’s pouch.

— Devoun Cetoute, Miami Herald, 16 Aug. 2026
Researchers have developed a new control framework that enables humanoid robots to perform agile movements, including army crawls, breakdancing and backflips.

— Jijo Malayil, Interesting Engineering, 12 Aug. 2026