Dictionary

hootchy-kootchy en · NOUN

Etymology

Unknown. Attested from the 1890s. 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). Later forms coochie, cooch appear to derive from hootchy-kootchy.

Meanings

1. (US) A kind of erotic dance similar to a belly dance, formerly performed at carnivals.
   • She let her hair down And he did the hoochie-koochie real slow. 1961, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, “Little Egypt (Ying-Yang)”, performed by The Coasters:
   • 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. 2012, Lauren Rabinovitz, Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies, and American Modernity, page 46:
2. (attributive) Something suggestive or sexualized.
   • 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. 2005, Toni Bentley, Sisters of Salome, page 41:

Forms

Relateds

hoochie mama · hoochie