hoity-toity

UK /ˈhɔɪtiˈtɔɪti/ US /ˈhɔɪtiˈtɔɪti/
noun 3adj 2adv 2intj 1

Definitions

noun

1

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; also, noisy merriment.

The VViddovvs I observ'd that vvere marching off, vvith the marque out of their mouths, vvere hugely concern'd to be thought Young, and ſtill talking of Maſques, Balls, Fiddles, Treats; Chanting and Jigging to every tune they heard, and all upon the Hoyty-Toyty like mad vvenches of fifteen.

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.

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.

adj

1

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; 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.

adv

1

Flightily, giddily.

2

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.

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