hoity-toity

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 8, 2010 is: hoity-toity • \hoy-tee-TOY-tee\  • adjective Examples: "I’m a simple man with down-home values," said Ray. "You won’t catch me hanging out with the hoity-toity crowd at trendy art galleries or chichi nightclubs." 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." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.