Dictionary

hobby-horsey en · ADJ

Pronunciation

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Etymology

From hobby horse + -y.

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, informal) Eccentrically insular or devoted to a particular topic.
   • The reporter's insistence on your emphasis on the sub-scale of ordinary Greeks was a deliberate attempt to offset scientific observations by making them appear hobby-horsey. To provide amusement for weak, fat-ridden office workers. What does an outsider know? 1999, Stanley Elkin, Boswell: A Modern Comedy, page 59:
   • 'The Dalzells of Daisydown' are a hobby-horsey family who live in an old, rambling, Virginia-creeper-covered English mansion and keep up fluctuating relations with friends at Newport. Two of them fall in love with the same young lady […] 1891, The Critic, volume 18, page 28:

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