Hootchy-kootchy

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A kind of erotic dance similar to a belly dance, formerly performed at carnivals. US

    "She let her hair down And he did the hoochie-koochie real slow."

  2. 2
    Something suggestive or sexualized. attributive

    "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."

Synonyms

All synonyms
dancehustlejig

Example

More examples

"She let her hair down And he did the hoochie-koochie real slow."

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.

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