How do you pronounce hobbledehoy?

The recorded pronunciation is /ˈhɒbəldihɔɪ/.

hobbledehoy

/ˈhɒbəldihɔɪ/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Scrabble Score

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noun

"I met a proper vpright youth, onely for a little ſtooping in the ſhoulders: […] & hee tolde me there was a fat filthy ballet-maker, that ſhould haue once been his Iourneyman to the trade: who liu’d about the towne; and ten to one, but he had thus terribly abuſed me & my Taberer: […] I found him about the bankſide, ſitting at a play, I deſired to ſpeake with him, […] Name my accuſer ſaith he, or I defye thee Kemp at the quart ſtaffe. I told him, & all his anger turned to laughter: ſwearing it did him good to haue ill words of a hoddy doddy, a habber de hoy, a chicken, a ſquib, a ſquall: […]"
"[…]all the men, boys, and hobbledehoys attached to the farm[…]"
"A man rarely carries his shyness past the hobbledehoy period."
"Two hobbledehoys were standing by the forge staring in a bovine way at the proceedings."
"And though it do take—how many years, Bob?—five years to turn a lirruping hobble-de-hoy chap into a solemn preaching man with no corrupt passions, they'll do it, if it can be done [...]"
"He was a fair boy, with round pink cheeks, with his hair parted on one side, and a shade of down on his lip. He looked frankly what he was — a hobbledehoy — though he made great efforts to seem grown up."

From Scots. Compare dialectal English hobbledygee (“(with a) limping movement”); also French hobereau (“country squire”), English hobby, and Old French hoi (“today”); the original sense may have been "an upstart of today".

hobbledehoys (plural)

hobbledehoydom hobbledehoyhood hobbledehoyish hobbledehoyism