Dictionary

jolly-hockey-sticks en · ADJ

Etymology

From a catchphrase introduced in a BBC radio comedy programme, Educating Archie (1950)http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jol1.htm.

Meanings

1. (UK) Wholesomely athletic and enthusiastic, in a manner stereotypically associated with traditional British public schools for girls.
   • Boarding-school life was a lot like Mallory Towers or St Clare's, the fictional jolly-hockey-sticks schools created by Enid Blyton. 'We would have midnight feasts, and I suppose it was a bit like the Blyton books,' recalls Susan Lawrence. 2008, Alison Bowyer, Dawn French: The Unauthorized Biography, page 19:
   • Polly couldn't abide Pat Walsh's bossy, jolly hockey-sticks manner and her curious predilection for calling absolutely everyone "babe." 2003, Caroline Upcher, Falling for Mr. Wrong:
   • There was a brigade of horsy women with enormous arses, moustaches and jolly-hockey-sticks ideas about everything walloping about in all directions, whose skins had weathered like leather and whose breath and hands always smelled of horse saliva and dung. 2006, Richard E. Grant, The Wah-Wah diaries: the making of a film:
   • We had to march along behind one of our mistresses — they were all very jolly hockey-sticks. March to church and then a lockstep turn about the park, everyone staring at us, knowing where we were from. 2005, Jim Christy, The redemption of Anna Dupree, page 122:

Forms