hoyden

plural hoydens · alternative hoiden

1. archaicA rude, uncultured or rowdy girl or woman.

   Tabitha is lighting the candles in the sconces. A great, strong, heavy girl, a hoyden, not pretty, her face distinguished only by youth, by health.

   1997, Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain

   5 more examples

   She is a hoyden, one will say. At any rate she is not a lady, another will exclaim. I have suspected her all through, a third will declare; she has no idea of the dignity of a matron; or of the peculiar propriety which her position demands.

   1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers: In Three Volumes, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, OCLC 911659634; republished [London]: D. Campbell Publishers, 1992 (Everyman's Library; 57), ISBN 978-1-85715-057-5, volume II, page 147

   her ladyship burst suddenly into the schoolroom to introduce Mr. Perriam, who, as she announced from the doorway to Maisie, wouldn't believe his ears that one had a great hoyden of a daughter.

   1897 October 16, Henry James, What Maisie Knew, Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.: Herbert S. Stone & Co., →OCLC

   Whether it was veritable love or mere modishness that formed my ancestor’s resolve, presently the bells were ringing out, and the oldest elm in the park was being felled, in Meg Speedwell’s honour, and the children were strewing daisies on which Meg Speedwell trod, a proud young hoyden of a bride, with her head in the air and her heart in the seventh heaven.

   1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published 1912, →OCLC

   It was the same conflicting emotion that made her desire to appear a delicate and high-bred lady with boys and to be, as well, a hoyden who was not above a few kisses.

   1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC

   Not all ladies in my profession are as that shameless hoyden, Mrs Charke, that has brought such distress through her malicious conduct and ill repute upon her worthy father, Mr Cibber; far from it, sir.

   1985, John Fowles, A Maggot

comparative more hoyden · superlative most hoyden · alternative hoiden

1. Like a hoyden: high-spirited and boisterous; saucy, tomboyish.

   Many of the country girls I met appeared to me pretty – that is, to have fine complexions, sparkling eyes, and a kind of arch, hoyden playfulness which distinguishes the village coquette.

   1796, Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, letter 22

   1 more example

   At these primitive tea parties the utmost propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting – no gambling of old ladies, nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones […]

   1809, Washington Irving, “chapter 3”, in Knickerbocker's History of New York

present singular third person hoydens · participle present hoydening · participle past hoydened · past hoydened · alternative hoiden

1. intransitiveTo behave in a hoydenish manner.