howdy

English

Alternative forms

• howdie (noun)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhaʊdi/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊdi

Etymology 1

Shortened form of "how d'ye (do)" (i.e. how do you do).

Interjection

howdy

1. (chiefly Texas, informal) An informal greeting.

   Howdy folks, and welcome to our ninth annual chili cookoff!

Derived terms

• boy howdy
• howdy-do
• howdy doody

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: odi

Translations

hi — see hi

Verb

howdy (third-person singular simple present howdies, present participle howdying, simple past and past participle howdied)

1. (transitive) To greet informally, especially by saying "howdy"
   • 2016, Brynn Bonner, Dead in a Flash, page 249:

     I stood up for the kid and it got ugly, with accusations being thrown in both directions. So the sheriff and I weren't exactly on howdying terms when that fire happened.

Etymology 2

Unknown

Noun

howdy (plural howdies)

1. (Scotland) A wife.
2. (Scotland) A midwife.
   • 1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC, pages 121–122:

     It's a beautiful point of presumptive murder, and there's been nane like it in the Justiciar Court since the case of Luckie Smith the howdie, that suffered in the year saxteen hundred and seventy-nine.