Haughty and hottie are easily confused words.
The spell-check application of most word processing software programs would not catch a slip-up of these two words. Spell-check is looking for words that aren’t in its dictionary, and words that resemble words in its dictionary, but are possibly spelled wrong. Spell-check isn’t perfect. It doesn’t know and can’t guess what word you wanted, or what word you meant, it can only judge the words on the page. If you used words that are all spelled correctly, it gives you a pass anyway.
Autocorrect suggests words that start with the same letters. It’s suggesting what word you may want to save time, but quite often, its suggestions are pretty off base. They don’t help you out, but they do make you laugh.
Haughty (pronounced “hawtee”) is an adjective. It means behaving in a snobby, arrogant, looking-down-one’s-nose way towards others.
Hottie (pronounced “hahtee”) is slang. It is an adjective. It means a sexy or attractive person. The dictionary says this usage evolved in the 1990s.
The following story uses both words correctly:
Hawthorne was widely regarded as the hottie in his class. Unfortunately, any attraction dissipated once he started talking. New kids quickly noticed his haughty attitude and superiority complex.
His older brother, Homer, was the total opposite. He was somewhat of a class clown, and never without a circle of friends.
Kathleen W Curry 