Etymology

hobbledehoy

H4O1B3B3L1E1D2E1H4O1Y4

Today it means: An awkward adolescent youth. Full definition →

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The story

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".

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.