How-d'ye-do

noun, phrase

noun, phrase ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A troublesome state of affairs.

    "Her abrupt departure from the wedding ceremony was a fine how-d'ye-do."

  2. 2
    an awkward situation wordnet
Phrase
  1. 1
    Alternative form of how do you do (greeting). alt-of, alternative

    "“How-d’ye-do, Jewel, how-d’ye-do?” asked the visitor, with that graceful freedom which distinguishes the truly well-bred."

Synonyms

All synonyms
how-do-you-do

Example

More examples

"Her abrupt departure from the wedding ceremony was a fine how-d'ye-do."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.