cootie

noun

coo·​tie ˈkü-tē 

plural cooties

1

informal : body louse

No, I haven't any cooties. I took off my shirt a few days ago to make a louse investigation, but found none of the creatures.

—Donald E. Carey

During World War I, the "cootie" was credited with saving American soldiers' lives fighting in the trenches. Soldiers kept bending down to kill the bugs biting their legs, which kept them from getting wounded or killed.

—The Avenue News (Essex Maryland)

also : head louse

She bent into an enamel pan on an old pine table in the yard, and I lathered her head. "Dig in," she said. "Get them cooties where they live."

—Richard Peck

2

cooties plural, slang, in children's play : an imaginary contagious disease thought of especially as being passed between boys and girls

Every little girl knows that boys have cooties, and vice versa. One catches cooties by—eww!—touching.

—Jane C. Hu

His worldview as a 5-year-old boy was that girls had cooties, and he wasn't interested.

—Bill Lohmann

… their touch transfers cooties (which girls can give to boys and to girls but boys can only give to girls).

—Naomi Gerstel

—sometimes used before another noun

My son, who is 19, told me the disease was so rampant when he was in grammar school that he had to get over 100 cootie shots [=pretend vaccinations against cooties].

—Mark Patinkin

also : a game involving the spread of cooties

I long for the simpler days when kids played cooties and Little League.

—Jeff Jarvis

3

slang, humorous : a germ or harmful microbe whether imaginary or real

I well recall a girlfriend of two decades ago who made bathing sound like a heinous character flaw. "How can you lie in water that's full of your own cooties and expect to get clean?" she said.

—Jay Stuller

They'll meet online so we all can participate without crowding into a cootie-prone room.

—Dakota Free Press (South Dakota)

4

Cootie plural Cooties : a member of a service association of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that provides social support and entertainment to veterans and their families

"For years he took me … to Martha T. Berry hospital and others, as a 'Cootie' delivering loads of books, magazines, packages of goodies and toiletries. …"

—Anita Kelly

From their bright uniforms to their fun-loving way of life, Cooties bring smiles and laughter to those "who most need it."

—Janie Dyhouse

see also cootie catcher

Examples of cootie in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In 1923, the brothers wrote a song about bedbugs and cooties and started a club with a steep entry fee: To be initiated into the organization, new members had to consent to getting stuck with pins. —Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Aug. 2024

But for me, the way into Cootie was his innocence and his naïveté. —Vulture, 7 July 2023

For example, a man who’s trying to punch Cootie flies up into the air. —Common Sense Media, Washington Post, 7 July 2023

Another, portrayed by the amazing Kara Young, serves as Cootie’s mentor in activism. —Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 6 July 2023

Word History

Etymology

of uncertain origin; (sense 4) after the Military Order of the Cooties, the organization's original name, alluding to the "cooties" (lice) that plagued soldiers in the trenches

Note: This word has at times been seen as a borrowing from Malay kutu "any of various parasitic biting insects," or a cognate form in another Austronesian language, with the ending conformed to -ie. (See forms under "louse" in R. Blust and S. Trussel, The Austronesian Comparative Dictionary, online.) The earliest records of coot and cootie "body louse," and cooty "infested with lice" are in letters and journals of British soldiers, or Americans in British service, in the trenches of Belgium and France. The American Harold Chapin, fighting in the British Army, used cooty and coot in letters written in April and September, 1915, prior to his death in the Battle of Loos on September 26. By 1917 the word was in general use among British and American soldiers. There is no indication in any of the early records of a connection with Southeast Asia or Oceania, which might be the case if coot(y) was a loanword from that region. Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, suggests that the adjective cooty "infested with lice," may have been the basis for the other forms, and alludes to the bird coot, which was reputed to have been heavily infested with parasites; compare the expression "as lousy as a coot," attested regionally in England since ca. 1864.

First Known Use

1917, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing cootie

• cootie catcher
• cootie shots

Kids Definition

cootie

noun

coo·​tie ˈküt-ē 

informal

: body louse

Medical Definition

cootie

noun

coo·​tie ˈküt-ē 

informal : body louse

also : head louse