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

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.

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 His family bought him a tear-off calendar for 2024 with a dad joke per day. —

Joe Buscaglia, The Athletic, 10 Jan. 2025 Yet Tracy turned out to be a perfect match for Ted’s earnestness, dad jokes, and wide-eyed romanticism. —

EW.com, 10 Jan. 2025 Bonus plant dad jokes sound rather delightful, though the ones that made it into the show are already top-tier. —

Mitch Wallace, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2025 See all Example Sentences for dad joke