Hoity-Toity

WORD OF THE DAY


hoity-toity \ hoy-tee-TOY-tee \ adjective
 
Definition
1a: thoughtlessly silly or frivolous
1b: : flighty
2a: marked by an air of assumed importance
2b: highfalutin


Examples
"… she was by no means hoity-toity, but a thinking, reasoning being of the profoundest intellectual, or, rather, the highest artistic tendencies."
— Theodore Dreiser, The Titan, 1914


"Usually Tanglewood's summer lineup is too hoity-toity for the great unwashed to care, but Beach Boys' legend and cofounder Brian Wilson performing the entire album 'Pet Sounds' is enough to give any summer concertgoer a good vibration."
— Craig S. Semon, The Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Massachusetts), 3 June 2016


Did You Know?
Today we most often use hoity-toity as an adjective, but before it was an adjective it was a noun meaning "thoughtless giddy behavior." The noun, which first appeared in print in 1668, was probably created as a singsongy rhyme based on the dialectal English word hoit, meaning "to play the fool." The adjective hoity-toity can stay close to its roots and mean "foolish" ("… as though it were very hoity-toity of me not to know that royal personage." — W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge), but in current use it more often means "pretentious."