naughty

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   (especially of a child) behaving badly and not doing what they are told.

   The naughty boy hid his sister's shoes.

2. 2
   adj

   Slightly rude or about sex, often in a playful way.

   They told a few naughty jokes at the party.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Naughty comes from Old English naught, “nothing,” and originally meant “having nothing, poor, or needy.” It later came to mean “wicked” or “morally bad,” before weakening to the modern sense of relatively harmless misbehavior; the mildly indecent sense dates from the mid-16th century.

From late Middle English noughti, naughty (“evil, immoral, wicked”), from nought (“evil, immoral”) + -ī̆ (suffix forming adjectives). Analysable as naught + -y.

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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