English edit

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

Alternative forms edit

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/
    • (file)

Noun edit

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 edit

Translations edit

Scots edit

Alternative forms edit

Noun edit

hobbledehoy (plural hobbledehoys)

  1. An awkward adolescent youth.

References edit

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