hoity-toity

American  

[hoi-tee-toi-tee] / ˈhɔɪ tiˈtɔɪ ti /

adjective

1. assuming airs; pretentious; highfalutin; haughty.

   He thinks he's better than we are because he went to one of those hoity-toity private schools.

2. giddy; flighty.

---

noun

1. giddy behavior.

hoity-toity British  

/ ˌhɔɪtɪˈtɔɪtɪ /

adjective

1. informal arrogant or haughty

   we have had enough of her hoity-toity manner

---

Etymology

Origin of hoity-toity

First recorded in 1660–70; reduplicated and altered rhyming compound based on hoit “to romp, riot, play the fool” (now obsolete)

Explanation

Someone who's hoity-toity is pretentious and snooty. If you speak to someone in a hoity-toity accent, they are going to assume that you're a snob. Your hoity-toity aunt might refuse to eat lunch in your favorite diner, insisting on someplace fancier, and a hoity-toity salesman might make you feel like you don't belong in an expensive department store with your old jeans and worn sneakers. The adjective hoity-toity started out meaning "riotous behavior" in the 1660s. By the late 1800s it had gained its modern meaning, probably out of similarity to the word "haughty."

Example Sentences

"I thought it important that we didn't issue a kind of hoity-toity response to Chalamet," Beard said.

From BBC • Apr. 14, 2026

“All my life, I have been driven by one dream, one goal, one vision,” Chavez told the hoity-toity crowd.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 30, 2024

They don’t appreciate the hoity-toity who look down on everyone else.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 8, 2023

Shiny, expensive, hoity-toity: these are three of many synonyms I heard from Angelenos describing Santa Barbara, the beach town that has long had a reputation as a weekend escape for Los Angeles’s elite.

From New York Times • Dec. 24, 2019

And, “Always crowing about their kid with the straight A’s at that hoity-toity school. Well, they’re not crowing now.”

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides