hobbledehoy
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of hobbledehoy
1530–40; variant of hoberdyhoy, alliterative compound, equivalent to hoberd (variant of Roberd Robert) + -y 2 + -hoy for boy ( b > h for alliteration; hob 2 )
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.
“I know a lot of these young men who are at a somewhat awkward stage, like Trollope’s hobbledehoy, caught somewhere between childhood and adulthood,” says Schine.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 10, 2023
In Louisiana an Elson Reader was banned because of this Mother Goose couplet: The gentleman rides gallop-a-trot, gallop- a-trot; The farmer rides hobbledehoy, hobble- de-hoy.
From Time Magazine Archive
For Anthony, "a hobbledehoy of 19, without any idea of a career," Frances obtained a clerkship in the London Post Office.
From Time Magazine Archive
A soldier, a noble, of the proudest and bravest race in Europe, it had been left to the prattle of a hobbledehoy lackey in an English chaise to recall me to the consciousness of duty.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) by Stevenson, Robert Louis
“We have got past the hobbledehoy age, I should hope.”
From Ruth Fielding In the Saddle College Girls in the Land of Gold by Emerson, Alice B.
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.
