Entry · catalog no. 7013
cornball
/ /ˈkɔːrnbɔːl/ /KORN-bawl
noun · nationwide · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
A corny, unhip, or try-hard person. In Black usage it often carries a pointed second sense: a Black person judged to be disconnected from Black culture or community.
“Calling him a cornball was not about jokes — it was saying he had lost touch with his own people.”
Origin & Attribution
African American English, where cornball for a corny person is documented by the mid-1940s. The charged racial-authenticity sense drew national attention in December 2012 when ESPN commentator Rob Parker questioned whether quarterback Robert Griffin III was a brother, or a cornball brother, meaning Black but not aligned with the community — a modern cousin of the older charge of being an Uncle Tom.
1946
cornball for a corny person documented in African American English
2012
Rob Parker's cornball brother remark about RGIII
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
nationwide · 1940s
Spoken by
African American English speakers
$CORNBAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady80 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
50/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1946
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Green's Dictionary of Slang, cornball
1946
■
+ Cite a sourceESPN First Take, Rob Parker remarks on RGIII
2012
See also