hobby
noun
Simple meaning
An activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hahbeeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhɑbi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time.
An auxiliary activity
equestrianism
An extinct breed of horse native to the British Isles, also known as the Irish Hobby.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time.
Used this way, hobby is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- hobbyhorse , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use hobby
- “His main hobby is collecting vintage comic books from the 1980s.”
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.