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Pronunciation varies by accent · adjective
(UK) Wholesomely athletic and enthusiastic, in a manner stereotypically associated with traditional British public schools for girls..
Polly couldn't abide Pat Walsh's bossy, jolly hockey-sticks manner and her curious predilection for calling absolutely everyone "babe."
We had to march along behind one of our mistresses — they were all very jolly hockey-sticks. March to church and then a lockstep turn about the park, everyone staring at us, knowing where we were from.
There was a brigade of horsy women with enormous arses, moustaches and jolly-hockey-sticks ideas about everything walloping about in all directions, whose skins had weathered like leather and whose breath and hands always smelled of horse saliva and dung.
Boarding-school life was a lot like Mallory Towers or St Clare's, the fictional jolly-hockey-sticks schools created by Enid Blyton. 'We would have midnight feasts, and I suppose it was a bit like the Blyton books,' recalls Susan Lawrence.
Use jolly-hockey-sticks when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Jolly-hockey-sticks means (UK) Wholesomely athletic and enthusiastic, in a manner stereotypically associated with traditional British public schools for girls..
The closest synonym depends on the sentence and intended sense.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
Polly couldn't abide Pat Walsh's bossy, jolly hockey-sticks manner and her curious predilection for calling absolutely everyone "babe."
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