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

And yet there’s this piece in the policy which pokes its head [and forces them to find a surrogate in Texas]. — Nick Vivarelli, Variety, 2 Oct. 2026 The International Kazoo Championship pokes a little fun at the rigidity of the main stage. — David Alm, Longreads, 1 Oct. 2026 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

Recent Examples of Synonyms for pokes

Noun

The conservative content creators have also made personal and sometimes racially charged jabs at Gersten, Melwani and Gramps Getaway employees.

— Miami Herald, Miami Herald, 14 Oct. 2026
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman traded jabs in their final debate before November's election.

— Tom Wait, CBS News, 14 Oct. 2026

Definition of jabs

Noun

In a round robin of insults, Proto blasted the incumbent Democratic senator who first won election in 2022.

— Christopher Keating, Hartford Courant, 14 Oct. 2026
But even with such attitudinal strides, Pew Research shows that people’s fears about AI’s societal impact are high, and digital choirs hurl insults at any project featuring the tech.

— Corbin Bolies, Variety, 13 Oct. 2026

Definition of insults

Noun

At its secret premiere at the Telluride Film Festival last month, audience members were required to lock their phones in pouches and warned that security guards with night-vision goggles would be watching for anyone trying to record the screening.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 16 Oct. 2026
Ruby Mint, the women’s beach accessories brand, offers premium beach towels, beach bags, slings, pouches and sarongs.

— Jean E. Palmieri, Footwear News, 15 Oct. 2026

Definition of pouches

Verb

Ping Ping, the male, has dark black circles around his eyes, while Fu Shuang, the female, has a forehead that protrudes a bit, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

— ABC News, ABC News, 27 Sep. 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

If a person interferes or one step fails, the system can adjust its plan and retry rather than requiring the entire task to be restarted.

— Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 2 Oct. 2026
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

Definition of interferes

Verb

However, Fed officials fear that the longer the war drags on, the higher the likelihood that the spike will make its way through the broader economy and become embedded in consumer and business expectations.

— Jeff Cox, CNBC, 14 Oct. 2026
As the comet rotates, fresh ice enters the sunlight and sublimates; the escaping gas then drags entrained dust particles away from the nucleus.

— Joe Rao, Space.com, 13 Oct. 2026

Definition of drags

Verb

There’s also a less than 10% chance of showers, if one of the hurricanes crawls farther up the coast, according to Wofford.

— Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times, 24 Sep. 2026
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