hobbledehoy
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English[edit]
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Alternative forms[edit]
Alternative forms of hobbledehoy
Etymology[edit]
(Can this(+) etymology be sourced?) From Scots. Compare dialectal English hobbledygee (“(with a) limping movement”); also French hobereau (“country squire”), English hobby, and Old French hoi (“today”); the original sense may have been "an upstart of today".
Pronunciation[edit]
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈhɒbəldihɔɪ/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
Noun[edit]
hobbledehoy (plural hobbledehoys)
- An awkward adolescent youth.
- 1600, William Kempe, Kemps nine daies vvonder:
- I met a proper vpright youth, onely for a little ſtooping in the ſhoulders: […] & hee tolde me there was a fat filthy ballet-maker, that ſhould haue once been his Iourneyman to the trade: who liu’d about the towne; and ten to one, but he had thus terribly abuſed me & my Taberer: […] I found him about the bankſide, ſitting at a play, I deſired to ſpeake with him, […] Name my accuſer ſaith he, or I defye thee Kemp at the quart ſtaffe. I told him, & all his anger turned to laughter: ſwearing it did him good to haue ill words of a hoddy doddy, a habber de hoy, a chicken, a ſquib, a ſquall: […]
- 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “chapter 28”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:
- […] all the men, boys, and hobbledehoys attached to the farm […]
- 1886, Jerome K Jerome, “On being shy”, in Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow:
- A man rarely carries his shyness past the hobbledehoy period.
- 1895, H G Wells, “chapter 12”, in The Wonderful Visit:
- Two hobbledehoys were standing by the forge staring in a bovine way at the proceedings.
- 1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, “PART 1, CHAPTER 3”, in Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, →OCLC:
- And though it do take—how many years, Bob?—five years to turn a lirruping hobble-de-hoy chap into a solemn preaching man with no corrupt passions, they'll do it, if it can be done [...]
- 1912, Romain Rolland, “Morning, 2”, in Jean-Christophe:
- He was a fair boy, with round pink cheeks, with his hair parted on one side, and a shade of down on his lip. He looked frankly what he was — a hobbledehoy — though he made great efforts to seem grown up.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
an awkward adolescent youth
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Scots[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Noun[edit]
hobbledehoy (plural hobbledehoys)
- An awkward adolescent youth.
References[edit]
- Hobbledehoydom, Juan Martinez, 2004.
- Wives and Daughters, chapter 8 page 77, Elizabeth Gaskell