Doughty
adj, name, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A person who is bold or brave. archaic, rare
- 1 Bold; brave, courageous. archaic, literary
"Hurriedly he snatched up others, one or two at a time, until he had slaughtered thirty of Hrothgar's doughtiest earls."
- 1 A surname transferred from the nickname.
Example
More examples"And I’m Bob Doughty. You can learn more about hepatitis, and download transcripts and audio of our programs, at voaspecialenglish.com. Listen again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America."
Etymology
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 Danish dygtig (“virtuous, proficient”), Dutch duchtig (“severe, strict”), German tüchtig (“capable, competent, efficient; big; hard”), Icelandic dygðugur (“virtuous, stable”), Scots douchty, douchtie (“bold, valiant”), Swedish duktig (“efficient; good; capable, clever, smart”). The noun is derived from the adjective.
From doughty, a nickname for a powerful and brave man, especially a champion jouster.
Related phrases
More for "doughty"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.