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hoity-toity

noun
/ˈhɔɪtiˈtɔɪti/US

Etymology

Probably from hoit (“to behave frivolously and thoughtlessly; to play the fool”) + -y (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘having the quality of’), reduplicated with a change of the initial consonant. The noun is attested earlier than the adjective.

  1. inherited from hote
  2. suffixed as hoity-toity — “hoit + y”

Definitions

  1. Behaviour adopted to demonstrate one's superiority

    Behaviour adopted to demonstrate one's superiority; pretentious or snobbish behaviour; airs and graces.

    • [O]ne piece of early homage still / Exacted of you; after your three bouts / At hoitytoity, great men with long words, / And so forth,— […]

  2. Flighty, giddy, or silly behaviour

    Flighty, giddy, or silly behaviour; also, noisy merriment.

    • And I'll divert ye with my Hoyty toyty; / With Fortune's choicest Blessings may regale ye, / And Wealth, and Wine, and Women, never fail ye.
    • If this [Georges] Danton were to burst your meshwork!—Very curious indeed to consider. It turns on a hair: and what a Hoitytoity was there, Justice and Culprit changing places; and the whole History of France running changed!

  3. A young woman regarded as flighty, giddy, or silly.

    • Whily Kate the Brown, the Plump, / The Frowzy Browzy, / Hoyty Toyty, / Covent-Garden Harridan, / Soon made poor Jockey’s Head to Ake, / And spoyl’d him for a merry Man.
  4. ›+ 5 more definitions

    1. Affected or pretentious, sometimes with the implication of displaying an air of excessive…

      Affected or pretentious, sometimes with the implication of displaying an air of excessive fanciness or ostentation; pompous, self-important, snobbish; often displaying a feeling of patronizing self-aggrandizing or arrogant class superiority.

      • [S]ee what hoity-toity airs she took[…].
      • The other models were gas fun, though they were all a bit hoity-toity.

    2. Flighty, giddy, silly

      Flighty, giddy, silly; also, merry in a noisy manner.

      • [W]e have been married fifteen Years, I take it: and that hoighty toighty buſineſs ought, in Conſcience, to be over.

    3. Flightily, giddily.

    4. Merrily, in a noisy manner.

      • Then hoity, toity, / VVhiſking, friſking, / Green vvas her govvn upon the graſs: / Oh! ſuch vvere the joys of our dancing days.

    5. Expressing disapprobation or surprise at acts or words that are pompous or snobbish, or…

      Expressing disapprobation or surprise at acts or words that are pompous or snobbish, or flighty.

      • Hoity toity, VVhat have I to do vvith his Dreams or his Divination—Body o' me, this is a Trick to defer Signing the Conveyance.
      • ‘Hoity! toity!’ cries Honour, ‘Madam is in her Airs, I proteſt.[…]’
      • VVhy, here is nothing in the vvorld in this houſe but catter-vvavvling from morning till night, nothing but catter-vvavvling. Hoity toity! vvho have vve here?

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for hoity-toity. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA