Use of the word "Dutchy" to describe a personality trait

Question

When I first became interested in genealogy and started asking my grandparents about their parents and grandparents, they both described my grandmother's grandmother as "Dutchy". I initially thought I had stumbled on a family connection to the Netherlands that I never knew existed but then it became clear they were talking about her personality or mannerisms. The sense I got was that they both were very fond of her, but...(she was "Dutchy").

Both of my grandparents were born in 1914 and this great-great grandmother died in 1933, so I'm wondering if this was an expression from their youth (in the Midwest U.S.). I did a Google search and there are several expressions that incorporate the word Dutch, usually in a pejorative sense. I found this page, which includes the expression "His dutch is up," meaning dander/temper. Is anyone else familiar with this usage?

Answer 1

I am of German heritage and raised in the Midwest. My parents and grandparents used the term dutchy to describe a woman who dressed in and old-fashioned, overly conservative, unflattering manner. They didn't use the term specifically to describe a personality trait, but it could apply to a stern, conservative, old-fashioned person.

Answer 2

The Urban Dictionary online has a number of ideas, but I suspect the OED gets closest

Frequency (in current use): Etymology: < Dutch adj., n.1, and adv. + -y suffix1. Dutch-like. 1893 J. H. Ross in King's Business (New Haven, Connecticut) 127 The faces [in Rembrandt's Scripture pictures] are not ideal but Dutchy.

My suspicion is that this was a late-nineteenth/early-twentieth American expression for a person of Dutch, or possibly German descent, perhaps one who didn't speak English entirely fluently.

Did your great, great grandmother have Dutch or German connections?

Answer 3

From my research, I have found this definition for Dutchy that I think suits your situation:

adjective

• Difficult to understand, slurred, imprecisely articulated (of one's speech) (dialect: regional to rural Central New York State)

He is so dutchy that we can hardly understand him.

I would assume this has a slight negative connotation so would fit into your impression that "they both were very fond of her, but...(she was Dutchy)"

Answer 4

When I wore badly matched or loud clothes as a child, my mother told me I looked Dutchy. I took it to mean rather outlandish.

Answer 5

In reference to the term "Dutchy" - I heard it used when a person is extremely frugal, to the point they would do something the old way that was harder than to update which might cost money. Everything was very simple including clothing. Also well worn to make sure they got their monies worth out of a shirt, etc. Nothing in reference to personality, etc - just very thrifty.

Answer 6

I know it's been a while since this thread was last posted on, but my mother who was from the midwest used the term "dutchy" to describe slurred speech. So you would be dutchy if you were partially deaf, or had just gotten your mouth numbed at the dentist office.

Answer 7

My ultra-modern German mother used the term interchangeably with “kitschy.” It was not flattering. She thought her old fashioned mother-in-law’s floral, knickknack laden decorating was DUTCHY!

Answer 8

My 93 year old mother was from Wisconsin. Her grandparents were German but I thought it was a midwestern expression. I never ever heard it used as a slur or in a derogatory way about a person, just in describing a style of clothing on a baby. A cute baby in an old fashioned style or print or dressed like an adult man with a bow tie or plaids, for example could be a little dutchy. Clothing a little too bright, too pattered, or fussy looking could be dutchy. It is hard to describe in words but it was a discriptive term about the style of clothing.

Answer 9

My grandmother, who grew up in Iowa and whose grandparents immigrated from Germany, described her cousins as “dutchy.” When I asked her to clarify what she meant, she said they were not popular or stylish.

Answer 10

My father, born in Central Ks, in 1914 used the phrase to mean mentally dull, hard to understand and just old fashioned and stubborn. He was Scott-Irish and used it as a whispered insult of men of his age and of German descent [many of our farmland neighbors around Hudson, Ks settlement]

Answer 11

Dutchy - of or resembling something or someone of Dutch origin; like a dutchman/woman.

In the 17th century, when Britain was at war with the Dutch, Dutch was a common pejorative adjective:

Dutch wife - a bolster

Dutch uncle - not avuncular

Dutch courage - courage derived from being drunk

Dutch treat - you pay for it yourself.

Dutch Foil - a cheap imitation of gold leaf

Dutch nightingale - a frog

Double Dutch - gibberish

etc.

(shortened meanings from OED)

Thus we have Dutchy - tacky; of poor quality or taste; crude, unsophisticated, etc.

Another possibility is given at The New Netherlands Institute (also repeating much of the above)

DUTCH: Bad temper, irascibility. “To get one’s Dutch up” is to get angry, to lose one’s temper."

So we would have "bad tempered".

Answer 12

Like many above, my Wisconsin-born parents 1912 and 1913 (father of German descent and mother French-Canadian) used dutchy to denote something that was tacky or out of fashion, such as a dress with the wrong hem length was "dutchy," or the color of a house was dutchy. But a friend from New York also grew up with this expression, so it's not strictly midwestern.