hobbledehoy

English

WOTD – 12 November 2012

Cartoon of a "hobbledehoy" William Cobbett enlisting in the army. From the Political Register of 1809. Artist James Gillray.

Alternative forms

Alternative forms of hobbledehoy

• hobbadehoy
• hobbarddehoy
• hobbedehoy
• hobbetyhoy
• hobbletehoy
• hobdehoy
• hobble-dehoy
• hobble-de-hoy

Etymology

(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

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhɒbəldihɔɪ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Noun

hobbledehoy (plural hobbledehoys)

1. 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

• hobbledehoyhood

Translations

an awkward adolescent youth

• Bulgarian: дангалак (bg) m (dangalak)
• Polish: młokos (pl) m, wyrostek (pl) m
• Russian: неуклю́жий подро́сток m (neukljúžij podróstok)
• Turkish: toy ergen, yeni yetme (tr), yeniyetme

Scots

Alternative forms

• hobbetyhoy, hobbarddehoy, hobbedehoy, hobdehoy, hobbledygee, hobereau, hobby, hoi to-day

Noun

hobbledehoy (plural hobbledehoys)

1. An awkward adolescent youth.

References

• Hobbledehoydom, Juan Martinez, 2004.
• Wives and Daughters, chapter 8 page 77, Elizabeth Gaskell