Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also haytie twaytie, highty-tighty, hoighty-toighty, hoity) aloof, snobbish.

a.1640		R. Brome New Academy III i: But no more haytie twaytie tricks, I charge you. She shall not jaunt to this nor that town with you.
1683		Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony 109: Play-Houses, the Nurseries of Hoity toyty Imagination.
1713		J. Gay Wife of Bath I i: You are a fine hoity toity Thing.
1764		K. O’Hara Midas II i: Not thus our hoity toity miss Will stick her arms a kimbo.
1771		Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 69: My uncle, frying with vexation, cried, ‘Good God, sister, how you talk!’ [...] ‘Hoity, toity, brother of mine,’ she replied.
1811		Norfolk Chron. 20 July 4/3: We shall be obliged to any of our readers for definitions of the following:— rantum-scantum [...] hoity-toity.
1832		Mr Mathews’ Comic Annual 13: Hoity toity, girls, why do you look so astonished?
c.1850		F.M. Whitcher Widow Bedott Papers (1883) 51: You can’t trust ’em they’re such highty-tighty critters.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 29 July 3/6: Bluff Honest Tom is now quite ‘hitey-titey’.
1898		H.B. Vogel Maori Maid 110: She’ll want a lot of knocking into shape, with all them ’oighty-toighty airs.
1900		Marvel 12 Dec. 3: Out of the road, you hoighty-toighty landlubber!
1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 219: ’Oighty-toity like, as the sayin’ were.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 12 Oct. [synd. col.] Now [muffs] for men] are sale at in several hoity-toity haberdasheries.
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 252: Mahoney was feeling particularly rasped by John’s hoity-toity behaviour.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 461: How after living with Leora, who was the real thing, you can stand a hoity-toity skirt like Joycey!
1935		X. Petulengro Romany Life 195: I assumed, as feathers for this rare bird, an elegant black vicuna suit [...] Also a hoighty-toighty voice.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 169: She was, therefore, less hoity-toity to Molly.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 9 Apr. 11/1: Way down under [Boston’s] hoity-toity exterior there’s more than just a bit of ‘Cat’.
1939		(con. 1880–90s) S. O’Casey I Knock at the Door 141: And oul’ haughty hoity-toity holy Hunter goin’ one better be sayin’ that God sent suffferin’s to try us.
1942		L. Bennett ‘Dunnins’ in Jamaica Dialect Verses 14: An’ ef she start fe speaky spoke / Har oitytity style, Dis bawl out.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 31 Jan. [synd. col.] Hoity-toity window displays [...] where a piece of furniture is treated with more care than most humans.
1946		D. Stivens Courtship of Uncle Henry 50: ‘My name ain’t Blondy,’ she said. ‘Getting all hoity-toity, uh?’ ‘You call me Vera.’ ‘Giving yourself airs, eh Blondy?’.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 205: He was once barred from New York’s hoity-toity 21 Club by a doorman.
1962		C. Clausen I Love You Honey, But the Season’s Over 46: She walks just like one of them hoity-toity society dames.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 73: You put that hoity toity bitch No-Balls Hadley in her place.
1982		A. Maupin Further Tales of the City (1984) 165: That good-looking thing traveling with the hoity-toity blonde?
1991		F. Mac Anna Last of the High Kings 119: They banjaxed our transport service with their imperialism [...] and hoity-toity ways.
1998		R.G. Barrett Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] ‘You hoity-toity peanut,’ cut in Norton.
2000		Guardian Editor 4 Feb. 6: His hoity-toity attacks against the French president [...] were the last straw.
2012		T. Robinson ‘Last Call’ in Dirty Words [ebook] [K]eeping nodding junkies off the floor was considered hoity-toity.
2018		G. Gilmore Class Act [ebook] She was on the point of saying something else, something a bit hoity you could tell.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 728: His daughter Tabitha [...] was a hoitytoity haughty miss no mistake.

2. (US) irritable.

1915

M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 216: highty-tighty, hoity-toity, quarrelsome. ‘If you’d take a nap you wouldn’t feel so highty-tighty’.

3. dull, formal, staid.

1956

Billie Holiday Lady Sings the Blues (1975) 53: Things were just too hoity-toity.