howdy
English edit
Alternative forms edit
- howdie (noun)
Pronunciation edit
Etymology 1 edit
Shortened form of "how d'ye (do)" (i.e. how do you do).
Interjection edit
howdy
- (chiefly Texas, informal) An informal greeting.
- Howdy folks, and welcome to our ninth annual chili cookoff!
Derived terms edit
Descendants edit
- Sranan Tongo: odi
Translations edit
hi — see hi
Verb edit
howdy (third-person singular simple present howdies, present participle howdying, simple past and past participle howdied)
- (transitive) To greet informally, especially by saying "howdy"
- 2016, Brynn Bonner, Dead in a Flash, page 249:
- I stood up for the kid and it got ugly, with accusations being thrown in both directions. So the sheriff and I weren't exactly on howdying terms when that fire happened.
Etymology 2 edit
Unknown
Noun edit
howdy (plural howdies)
- (Scotland) A wife.
- (Scotland) A midwife.
- 1818 July 25, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC, pages 121–122:
- It's a beautiful point of presumptive murder, and there's been nane like it in the Justiciar Court since the case of Luckie Smith the howdie, that suffered in the year saxteen hundred and seventy-nine.