Other forms: hobbies
A hobby is something you do regularly for pleasure in your free time. Take up a hobby, an expensive hobby, my main hobby.
The word comes from the hobby horse, a child's toy, by way of the idea of riding a favourite one. That is also where hobbyhorse, meaning a subject somebody always returns to, comes from.
1nounhobbySomething you do regularly for pleasure in your free time.
“My dad's hobby is fishing, so he spends most weekends by the river.”
hobby is a pastime.
From hoby, a small horse or pony, by way of the hobby horse and the idea of riding a favourite one.
Old French
hobin
Anglo-Norman
hobyn
Middle English
hoby — small horse, pony
English, today
hobby
Built from
From Middle English hoby (“small horse, pony”), a variant or alteration of hobyn (“a small ambling horse”), of unknown. According to one theory the term is derived from Hobin, a pet name of Robert or Robin, at the time frequently used as a proper name for a workhorse (compare dobbin). Alternatively, possibly from Anglo-Norman hobyn, Old French hobin, obin "a nag, hobby"; > Modern French aubin, Italian ubino: either derived from Old French hober, ober (“to stir, move”), from Old Dutch hobbon "to toss, move up and down"; whence Middle Dutch hobbelen (“to bump along”); or possibly from gmq - origin related to Danish hoppe (“a mare”), gmq-osw hoppa (“a young mare”), frr hoppe (“horse”); both routes ultimately deriving from Proto-Germanic huppōną (“to bob, hop”), from Proto-Indo-European kewb- (“to bend; a bend, joint”). More at hop, hobble. The modern sense of "pastime, activity of interest" is a a clipping of hobby horse, which had shifted from "small horse, pony" to "child's toy riding horse" to "favorite pastime or avocation" with the connecting notion being "activity that doesn't go anywhere".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA