naughty

From Middle English naughty, nauȝty, nauȝti, naȝti, equivalent to naught +‎ -y.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈnɔːti/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈnɔti/, /ˈnɑti/
• Homophone: knotty (in accents with the cot-caught merger)

• Audio (US cot-caught merged)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːti

naughty (comparative naughtier, superlative naughtiest)

1. Mischievous; tending to misbehave or act badly (especially of a child). [from 17th c.]

   Some naughty boys at school hid the teacher's lesson notes.

2. Sexually provocative; now in weakened sense, risqué, cheeky. [from 19th c.]

   I bought some naughty lingerie for my honeymoon.

   If I see you send another naughty email to your friends, you will be forbidden from using the computer!

3. (now rare, archaic) Evil, wicked, morally reprehensible. [from 15th c.]
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act V scene i:

     […] How far that little candle throws his beams! / So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

   • 1644, John Milton, Aeropagitica:

     Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomack differ little or nothing from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evill.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Nicholas Udall

     Such as be intemperant, that is, followers of their naughty appetites and lusts.

4. (obsolete) Bad, worthless, substandard. [16th-19th c.]
   • 1999, American King James Bible, Jeremiah 24:2:

     One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

• noughty (archaic or obsolete)

• (immoral, sexually provocative): dirty
• (mischievous): mischievous

• (immoral; cheeky): nice

• naughtily
• naughtiness
• naughty bit