"cornball" meaning in English

See cornball in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Forms: more cornball [comparative], most cornball [superlative]
Etymology: Etymology tree English corn English -ball English cornball From corn + -ball. # (US, informal) An unsophisticated person. # (US, informal) Something or someone excessively corny. #: That movie was a real cornball. #* 2014 June 26, A. A. Dowd, “Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler Spoof Rom-com Clichés in They Came Together”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 07 Dec 2017: [Paul] Rudd, especially, finds the perfect balance between synthetic cornball charm and actual emotional engagement. Like the movie itself, he’s best when playing the rom-com clichés straight. # (US, originally African-American Vernacular, Internet slang) A corny person; an uncool, stupid, or lame person. #: Who's this cornball, man? Etymology templates: {{etymon|en|:af|corn|-ball|text=+|tree=1}} Etymology tree English corn English -ball English cornball From corn + -ball., {{lb|en|US|informal}} (US, informal), {{lb|en|US|informal}} (US, informal), {{ux|en|That movie was a real cornball.}} That movie was a real cornball., {{quote-web|en|archivedate=7 December 2017|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171207170009/https://film.avclub.com/paul-rudd-and-amy-poehler-spoof-rom-com-cliches-in-they-1798180775|author=A. A. Dowd|date=26 June 2014|passage=􂀿Paul􂁀 Rudd, especially, finds the perfect balance between synthetic cornball charm and actual emotional engagement. Like the movie itself, he’s best when playing the rom-com clichés straight.|title=Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler Spoof Rom-com Clichés in They Came Together|url=https://film.avclub.com/paul-rudd-and-amy-poehler-spoof-rom-com-cliches-in-they-1798180775|work=w:The A.V. Club}} 2014 June 26, A. A. Dowd, “Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler Spoof Rom-com Clichés in They Came Together”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 07 Dec 2017: [Paul] Rudd, especially, finds the perfect balance between synthetic cornball charm and actual emotional engagement. Like the movie itself, he’s best when playing the rom-com clichés straight., {{lb|en|US|originally|AAVE|Internet slang}} (US, originally African-American Vernacular, Internet slang), {{ux|en|Who's this cornball, man?}} Who's this cornball, man? Head templates: {{en-adj}} cornball (comparative more cornball, superlative most cornball)
  1. (informal) Naive, corny. Tags: informal Derived forms: cornballish Related terms: cornfed
    Sense id: en-cornball-en-adj-sXdIXKDk Categories (other): Maize (food) Disambiguation of Maize (food): 25 75
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 2 Categories (other): People Disambiguation of People: 0 0

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-cornball.wav [US] Forms: cornballs [plural]
Etymology: From corn + ball. Etymology templates: {{af|en|corn|ball}} corn + ball Head templates: {{en-noun}} cornball (plural cornballs)
  1. A ball of popped corn stuck together with soft candy from molasses or sugar.
    Sense id: en-cornball-en-noun-oALfSs7R Categories (other): English entries referencing missing etymons, English entries with etymology texts, English entries with etymology trees, English entries with incorrect language header, English terms suffixed with -ball, Pages using etymon with no ID, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Pages with etymology trees, Maize (food) Disambiguation of English entries referencing missing etymons: 23 77 Disambiguation of English entries with etymology texts: 22 78 Disambiguation of English entries with etymology trees: 22 78 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 23 77 Disambiguation of English terms suffixed with -ball: 19 81 Disambiguation of Pages using etymon with no ID: 23 77 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 24 76 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 24 76 Disambiguation of Pages with etymology trees: 22 78 Disambiguation of Maize (food): 25 75
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 1 Categories (other): People Disambiguation of People: 0 0

Inflected forms

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Download raw JSONL data for cornball meaning in English (6.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-06-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-06-01 using wiktextract (ade7ec3 and 7f4db16). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.