Ecdysiast

//ɛkˈdɪz.i.æst// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An erotic dancer who removes their clothes as a form of entertainment; a stripper. uncommon

    "I had never seen an ecdysiast before; toward the end she was wearing nothing but seven beads, four of them sweat."

  2. 2
    a performer who provides erotic entertainment by undressing to music wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
exotic dancerstripperaltogetherartistbelly dancerbirthday suit

Example

More examples

"I had never seen an ecdysiast before; toward the end she was wearing nothing but seven beads, four of them sweat."

Etymology

Coined by H. L. Mencken from ecdysis (“moulting”) (on the model of enthusiast etc.).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.