doughty
1 Americanadjective
noun
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
- doughtily adverb
- doughtiness noun
- undoughty adjective
Etymology
Origin of doughty
before 1000; Middle English; Old English dohtig worthy, equivalent to *doht worth (cognate with Old High German toht; dow, -th 1 ) + -ig -y 1; replacing Old English dyhtig, cognate with German tüchtig
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Young readers will cheer for the doughty girl, who braves the razored depths to haul the baby dragon to safety in this satisfying, sumptuously illustrated fable translated from the French by Alyson Waters.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 9, 2025
None of these doughty Irish mams, abroad for the first time in their lives, display the slightest curiosity about their surroundings, or indeed anything beyond the horizons of their own tangled histories.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 14, 2023
His doughty performance, punctuated by that final dash to victory, spoke the loudest.
From Washington Post • Jan. 29, 2023
They also had a doughty opponent that grew in confidence.
From BBC • Dec. 21, 2022
Though slow to quarrel, and for sport killing nothing that lived, they were doughty at bay, and at need could still handle arms.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
