WORD OF THE DAY: HOITY-TOITY
adjective | hoy-tee-TOY-tee
What It Means
Someone or something described as hoity-toity may also be called snooty or pretentious; hoity-toity people appear to think that they are better, smarter, or more important than other people, and hoity-toity places and things seem to be made for those same people. An informal word, hoity-toity is a synonym of pompous, fancy, and hifalutin.
// The guidance counselor emphasised that students do not need to go to a hoity-toity college to achieve success.
Examples of HOITY-TOITY
“Most Summer Olympics show beach volleyball on a beach. This year’s spikers will play in front of the Eiffel Tower because they can. And just in case equestrian events aren’t hoity-toity enough, the 2024 dressage and jumping will unfold at the Palace of Versailles.” — Jen Chaney, Vulture, 24 May 2024
Did You Know?
In modern use, hoity-toity is used almost exclusively to describe someone who’s got their nose stuck up in the air, or something suited for such a person. But for over a hundred years, hoity-toity was used solely as a noun referring to thoughtless and silly behavior. The noun originated as a rhyming reduplication of the dialectical verb hoit, meaning “to play the fool.” Accordingly, as an adjective hoity-toity was originally used to describe someone as thoughtless or silly—as when English writer W. Somerset Maugham wrote in his 1944 novel The Razor’s Edge “very hoity-toity of me not to know that royal personage”—but today it is more likely to describe the royal personage, or someone who puts on airs as if they were a royal personage.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
