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cooty

Slang adjective describing someone or something infested with cooties — body lice or, in the playground sense, an imaginary contagious uncoolness.

ˈkuti107 viewsLast reviewed Jun 29, 2026+ Add a definition
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#1·Apr 28, 2026

Slang adjective describing someone or something infested with cooties — body lice or, in the playground sense, an imaginary contagious uncoolness. To call something or someone cooty is to mark it as grubby, undesirable, or socially contaminated. The term echoes generations of childhood games where 'cooties' were a mock disease you could catch from touching the wrong person. In adult usage it retains that tone of theatrical disgust, though always with a nudge-and-wink awareness that it's fundamentally silly.

Nobody wanted to sit next to Derek at lunch; the rumour going around was that he was totally cooty.
Origin: From 'cootie', a term for body louse (Pediculus humanus), derived possibly from Malay kutu (louse), entering American English via soldiers returning from WWI. Editorial expansion authored on Slangora (model-assisted, hedged).
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#2·Apr 26, 2026

(slang) Afflicted with body lice or coots.

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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.

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