hooch

1 of 2

noun (1)

slang
: alcoholic liquor especially when inferior or illicitly made or obtained

hooch

2 of 2

noun (2)

variants or hootch
slang
: a usually thatched hut
broadly : dwelling

Examples of hooch in a Sentence

Noun (1) during Prohibition, everybody drank homemade hooch Noun (2) the soldiers quickly threw up the hooches where they would be living for the next few weeks
Recent Examples on the Web
These examples are automatically compiled from online sources to illustrate current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Noun
In the back of the same floor, a cozy bar offers high-end hooch, the madam’s teller’s cage and the setting for The Gator Club’s scariest ghost stories. Usa Today Network, USA TODAY, 29 July 2024 The gender divide is even more pronounced than the generational one, with the women mostly indoors, united in exasperation with their men, and the men standing about outside drinking homebrew hooch and swapping wry strategies about how best to manage their outspoken women. Jessica Kiang, Variety, 5 July 2024 Get The Recipe 43 of 54 Apple-Pie Infused Bourbon Turn a plain bottle of hooch into a top-shelf indulgence, infused with sweet autumn flavor. Southern Living Editors, Southern Living, 28 Mar. 2024 Alcoholic beverages will include $6 light draft beers, the Wolverine bite drink of Corazon Blanco, blue curacao, lime juice, simple syrup, and lemonade, and the husky hooch drink of Wheatley Vodka, Creme de Violette, lime juice, simple syrup lemonade. Jenna Prestininzi, Detroit Free Press, 5 Jan. 2024 In the 1920s, Moonlight Beach was popular with sunbathers, race-horse aficionados and bootleggers, who used the beach as a hooch drop-off point. San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Oct. 2023 Other scofflaws are refilling empty premium bottles with cheap hooch and passing them off as the real thing. Justin Jouvenal, Washington Post, 20 Sep. 2022 Saloons were supplanted by speakeasies, complete with secret passwords and off-the-menu hooch. National Geographic, 2 Nov. 2020 Historians say many a drunken citizen slept off the effects of too much hooch while locked up in the jail, located near Madison and Girod streets about four blocks from Lake Pontchartrain. Kim Chatelain | Contributing Writer, NOLA.com, 11 Oct. 2020

Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

short for hoochinoo, a distilled liquor made by the Hoochinoo (Hutsnuwu) Indians, a Tlingit tribe

Noun (2)

modification of Japanese uchi house

First Known Use

Noun (1)

1897, in the meaning defined above

Noun (2)

1960, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of hooch was in 1897

Dictionary Entries Near hooch

Cite this Entry

“Hooch.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hooch. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.

Biographical Definition

Hooch

biographical name

variants or Hoogh
Pieter de 1629–after 1684 Dutch painter
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