hootchy-kootchy
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Unknown.[2] Attested from the 1890s.[3] Compare kouta kouta dance, a similar belly dance also attested from the 1890s. Possibly influenced by forms such as honky-tonk (from 1880s), hula-hula (from 1820s), or hurdy-gurdy (from 1740s).[4] Later forms coochie, cooch appear to derive from hootchy-kootchy.[3]
Pronunciation edit
- Rhymes: -uːtʃi
Noun edit
hootchy-kootchy (plural hootchy-kootchies)
- (US) A kind of erotic dance similar to a belly dance, formerly performed at carnivals.
- 2012, Lauren Rabinovitz, Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies, and American Modernity[2], page 46:
- The shows claimed legitimacy as depictions of Middle Eastern and Asian cultures that were still regarded as savage […] But these dances never were authentic rituals or ethnographic displays; instead they became known as “hootchy-kootchy” or “cooch” dances designed to please and excite male patrons.
- (attributive) Something suggestive or sexualized.
- 2005, Toni Bentley, Sisters of Salome[3], page 41:
- In Mary Garden’s hands the princess was an amalgam of the diva of German opera and the ballerina of the Paris Opera rounded out by a good dose of the hootchy-kootchy girl from American vaudeville.
See also edit
References edit
- ^ “hootchy-kootchy”, in Collins English Dictionary.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 “hootchy-kootchy”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 “hootchy-kootchy, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
- ^ Jensen Brown, Peter (2016 July 4) “The "Kouta-Kouta" and the "Coochie-Coochie" – a History and Etymology of the "Hoochie Coochie" Dance”, in Early Sports and Pop Culture History Blog[1]
