naughty

From late Middle English noughti, naughty (“evil, immoral, wicked”),^[1] from nought (“evil, immoral”)^[2] + -ī̆ (suffix forming adjectives).^[3] Analysable as naught +‎ -y.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈnɔːti/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈnɔti/, [ˈnɔɾi]
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /ˈnɑti/, [ˈnɑɾi]

  • Audio (US, cot–caught merger):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːti
• Hyphenation: naugh‧ty
• Homophones: knotty (cot–caught merger); noddy (cot–caught merger, flapping)

naughty (comparative naughtier, superlative naughtiest)

1. Mischievous; tending to misbehave or act badly (especially of a child). [from 17th c.]

   Some naughty boys at school hid the teacher's lesson notes.

2. Sexually provocative; now in weakened sense, risqué, cheeky. [from 19th c.]

   I bought some naughty lingerie for my honeymoon.

   If I see you send another naughty email to your friends, you will be forbidden from using the computer!

3. (now rare, archaic) Evil, wicked, morally reprehensible. [from 15th c.]
   • 1589, John Bucke, Instructions for the Use of the Beades:

     my proneſſe to ſinne, and naughty appetites and desires, woulde drawe me headlong to the pitte of hell

   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

     […] How far that little candle throws his beams!
     So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC:

     Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomack differ little or nothing from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evill.

4. (obsolete) Bad, worthless, substandard. [16th–19th c.]
   • 1542, Andrew Boorde, The First Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge:

     In Cornwall is two speches, the one is naughty Englysshe, and the other is Cornysshe speche.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 24:2:

     One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

• noughty (archaic or obsolete)

• (immoral, sexually provocative): dirty
• (mischievous): mischievous

• (antonym(s) of “immoral; cheeky”): nice

naughty (third-person singular simple present naughties, present participle naughtying, simple past and past participle naughtied)

1. To perform sexual acts upon.