hoity-toity
Americanadjective
-
assuming airs; pretentious; highfalutin; haughty.
He thinks he's better than we are because he went to one of those hoity-toity private schools.
noun
adjective
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"I thought it important that we didn't issue a kind of hoity-toity response to Chalamet," Beard said.
From BBC • Apr. 14, 2026
It’s more about the hoity-toity than the hoi polloi in “Belgravia,” a new drama set in 19th century London and created by “Downton Abbey’s” Julian Fellowes.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 10, 2020
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
Trendy South Lake Union versions be damned: Das Wagon’s very, very spicy version of the Seattle Dog isn’t any kind of hoity-toity “elevation” of the stadium-food favorite.
From Seattle Times • Oct. 24, 2019
I thought I’d see her during the summers, but she spent them on the East Coast as a junior counselor at some hoity-toity camp.
From "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" by emily m. danforth
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.
