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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

doughty.

Bold; brave, courageous.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈdaʊti/Received-Pronunciation/ˈdaʊti/General-American[-ɾi]General-American[ˈdʌʊ̯ɾi]

  1. Bold; brave, courageous.

    archaic · literary

  2. Robust, sturdy; strong and perhaps stout.

    archaic · literary

  3. Catachresis for dowdy.

    uncommon
Where this word comes from

The adjective is derived from Middle English doughty (“brave, bold, valiant”), from Old English dohtiġ, dyhtiġ (“competent, good, strong, valiant”), from Proto-West Germanic *duhtīg. The English word may be analysed as dought + -y, and is cognate with Scots douchty, douchtie (“bold, valiant”), Dutch duchtig (“severe, strict”), German tüchtig (“capable, competent, efficient; big; hard”), Danish dygtig (“virtuous, proficient”), Swedish duktig (“efficient; good; capable, clever, smart”), Icelandic dygðugur (“virtuous, stable”). The noun is derived from the adjective.

noun/ˈdaʊti/Received-Pronunciation/ˈdaʊti/General-American[-ɾi]General-American[ˈdʌʊ̯ɾi]

  1. A person who is bold or brave.

    archaic · rare
Where this word comes from

The adjective is derived from Middle English doughty (“brave, bold, valiant”), from Old English dohtiġ, dyhtiġ (“competent, good, strong, valiant”), from Proto-West Germanic *duhtīg. The English word may be analysed as dought + -y, and is cognate with Scots douchty, douchtie (“bold, valiant”), Dutch duchtig (“severe, strict”), German tüchtig (“capable, competent, efficient; big; hard”), Danish dygtig (“virtuous, proficient”), Swedish duktig (“efficient; good; capable, clever, smart”), Icelandic dygðugur (“virtuous, stable”). The noun is derived from the adjective.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.