Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Affectedly sweet, good, or virtuous.
- noun One who is affectedly sweet, good, or virtuous.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective colloq. Mawkishly or weakly good; exhibiting goodness with silliness.
- noun colloq. A person who is weakly, sentimentally, or affectedly good; a goody-goody person; -- sometimes used to refer to person who acts with good intentions but who bunglingly does more harm than good. The latter may sometimes be deprecatingly referred to as a
goo-goo .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
well-behaved person with no obvious human failings, with the possible exception ofsmugness andself-satisfaction
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a person who behaves extremely well in order to please a superior
- adjective affectedly or smugly good or self-righteous
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word goody-goody.
Examples
-
I mean, just look at this goody-goody health rhetoric:
Eric Boehlert: Confirmed: Nutrition Doesn't Explain Right-Wing Attacks on Michelle Obama Eric Boehlert 2012
-
I mean, just look at this goody-goody health rhetoric:
Eric Boehlert: Confirmed: Nutrition Doesn't Explain Right-Wing Attacks on Michelle Obama Eric Boehlert 2012
-
The obssesion with boys eludes me a bit, b/c most of my overachieving friends were too busy w/schoolwork to get boycrazy (I was too shy and goody-goody).
-
I mean, just look at this goody-goody health rhetoric:
Eric Boehlert: Confirmed: Nutrition Doesn't Explain Right-Wing Attacks on Michelle Obama Eric Boehlert 2012
-
I mean, just look at this goody-goody health rhetoric:
Eric Boehlert: Confirmed: Nutrition Doesn't Explain Right-Wing Attacks on Michelle Obama Eric Boehlert 2012
-
The drama began near the end of the live session with the governor and the two candidates who want to succeed him, as Lauer -- who demonstrated he knows absolutely NOTHING about politics -- shamelessly sought to play to the kumbaya crowd with a horseshit, goody-goody question.
Phil Trounstine: eMeg's Historic Meltdown: Woman Booed by Women Phil Trounstine 2010
-
"I'm not swayed by goody-goody later deeds," she says.
Some in Lizzie Borden's Hometown Think Her Legend Is Out of Whack Jennifer Levitz 2011
-
And I didn't want him just to come across as a goody-goody.
A life in books: Lauren Child Sarah Crown 2010
-
This time almost no announcer tried to play the goody-goody.
Global Voices in English » Japan: Filipino girl sees her parents deported 2009
-
I mean, just look at this goody-goody health rhetoric:
Eric Boehlert: Confirmed: Nutrition Doesn't Explain Right-Wing Attacks on Michelle Obama Eric Boehlert 2012
ruzuzu commented on the word goody-goody
"A person who is weakly, sentimentally, or affectedly good; a goody-goody person; -- sometimes used to refer to person who acts with good intentions but who bunglingly does more harm than good. The latter may sometimes be deprecatingly referred to as a goo-goo."
--GNU Webster's 1913
August 23, 2012