A bold girl, a saucy one, a HUSSY, another example of the conversion of a masculine word with a bad meaning into a feminine term (see also HARLOT and GIRL in this connection). The earliest examples of hoyden in writing come from the sixteenth century. The word referred then to a rude or ignorant fellow, a boor or bumpkin, e.g., "I'le make every hoydon bestowe a faringe on his dore, his wall, his windowe" (OED, 1597). Before the end of the next century, the word was being applied to rude, ill-bred, and noisy girls and women. It probably comes from the theory squares with the word's early application to rustics. The term might also be connected, however, with hoit, an old word meaning "to romp inelegantly" (OED), as bold and saucy girls are wont to do. "HOYDON. A romping girl" (Captain Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796). See also HEATHEN and HOITY-TOITY.
from Wicked Words by Hugh Rawson
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