Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A high-spirited, boisterous, or saucy girl.
- adj. High-spirited; boisterous.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- See hoiden.
Wiktionary
- n. A rude, uncultured or rowdy girl or woman.
- adj. Like a hoyden: high-spirited and boisterous; saucy, tomboyish.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Same as hoiden.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a girl who behaves in a boyish manner
Etymologies
- From earlier hoyden, a rude youth, probably from Dutch heiden, heathen, boor, from Middle Dutch; see kaito- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Although you acknowledge that "references to demons, poltergeists, and other unpleasant spiritual beings" are a matter of concern in the first edition, you excuse references to fairies, gnomes and medieval life, as well as "the occasional use of words such as hoyden and ribald," in later editions.”
“Condemn Saxon's references to fairies, gnomes, and medieval life and the use of words like "hoyden" and "ribald" just like you condemned references to poltergeists in the first edition.”
“If a girl does not conform, she is defined as a "hoyden" or a "tomboy.”
“Just what turrible transgression did you commit, you wee wicked hoyden?”
“God grant I live long enough to buy that Scottish hoyden a decent number of petticoats and at least one pair of slippers.”
“Now she just hoped no one saw her running like a hoyden with her skirts bunched around her knees.”
“But against that I argue that the vulgar, cracker-voiced hoyden of Washing-ton was as unlike the high-bred frigid midget of Greystones as could be.”
“They gave way, therefore, with meekness to her domineering temper, though it was not the less tyrannical, that in her maiden state of hoyden-hood, she had been to some of them an object of slight and of censure; and Lady Binks had not forgotten the offences offered to Miss Bonnyrigg.”
“Mom in Hot Seat, Pt. 2Eager as people are to sniff out trashiness whenever Britney Spears makes the news -- doesn't this hoyden know her place?”
“She that will not feel my ful-moon let her peel to thee as the hoyden and the impudent!”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hoyden’.
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aphaziak's list
Word Infatuations
prelapsarian, tricksy, podophthalmia, paregoric, struldbrug, econorrhea, transmundane, hoyden
bilby Vexample: "Is hoyden a dictionary word, or not?" — The New Girl at St. Chad's A Story of School Life Nov 21, 2009
rolig This word may be related, etymologically, to heathen. Very interesting. May 28, 2009
middlesmith This word is best spoken in a Jerry Lewis voice. May 27, 2009
yarb "Mary was a little hoyden, and Fred at six years old thought her the nicest girl in the world making her his wife with a brass ring which he had cut from an umbrella."
- George Eliot, Middlemarch Feb 19, 2008
minerva Dear creature!-- Did she never romp? Did she never from girlhood to now, hoyden?
Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson Dec 13, 2007