different between cootie vs coolie

English

Etymology

Probably from Malay kutu (“flea, louse”) (and/or Tagalog/Maori). First attested in English in 1917 as British army slang during World War I.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /?ku?ti/

Noun

cootie (plural cooties)

1. (dated, British Army military slang) A louse (Pediculus humanus).
2. (Canada, US, colloquial) A louse (Pediculus humanus).
   • 1921, L. M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside

     "Tell Rilla I'm glad her war-baby is turning out so well, and tell Susan that I'm fighting a good fight against both Huns and cooties."

     "Mrs. Dr. dear," whispered Susan solemnly, "what are cooties?"

     Mrs. Blythe whispered back and then said in reply to Susan's horrified ejaculations, "It's always like that in the trenches, Susan."

     Susan shook her head and went away in grim silence to re-open a parcel she had sewed up for Jem and slip in a fine tooth comb.

3. (Canada, US, colloquial, childish, usually in the plural) Any germ or contaminant, real or imagined, especially from the opposite gender (for pre-pubescent children).

   I’m not drinking from his glass until I wash the cooties off it.

4. (rare) A nest-building female American coot (counterpart to cooter).
5. (rare, slang) A sideswiper, a type of telegraph key.

Hyponyms

• (germ or contaminant): boy germ, girl germ

Derived terms

• cootie catcher
• crazy as a cootie, crazy as a cootie bug

Translations

See also

• lurgy

Scots

Etymology 1

Diminutive of cood possibly influenced by kittie (“a large washing-chamber”).

Noun

cootie (plural cooties)

1. (obsolete) A wooden dish or tub for kitchen use.

References

• “cood” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.

Etymology 2

Possibly from coot (“ankle”).

Adjective

cootie

1. Having feathers on the legs.

   a cootie hen

   • 1876, Robert Burns, Tam Samson's Elegy:

     Ye cootie moorcocks

References

• “cootie” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.

English

Alternative forms

• cooly, kuli, quli, koelie, etc.

Etymology

From Hindi ????? (qul?) and Urdu ???? (qul?, “hired laborer”), possibly from Ottoman Turkish ???? (kul, “servant”). Another theory says that it is named after a Gujarati tribe or caste of that name. Other forms occur in Bengali ???? (kuli) and Tamil ???? (k?li, “daily hire”). Possibly also influenced by Hindi ???? (kol?, “weaver; low-class”).

Mandarin ?? (k?lì, “hard labor”) may have been influenced by cognates of the above Hindi word in other languages and may have further influenced English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ku?li/
• Rhymes: -u?li

Noun

coolie (plural coolies)

1. (offensive) An unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.
   • 1992, Jan Breman, E. Valentine Daniel, Conclusion: The Maiking of a Coolie, E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein, Tom Brass (editors), Plantations, Proletarians, and Peasants in Colonial Asia, Frank Cass & Co., page 268,

     Coolie-identity is as much the product of self-perception as it is the construction of a category by those who did not belong to it. It is these constructions that historically constituted a coolie in the matrix of power relations which this essay seeks to partially comprehend.

   • 2008, Lisa Yun, The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba, Temple University Press, page xix,

     Community histories did not necessarily feature the coolie, partly due to the fact that “coolie” is a classed term. Asian coolies were regarded as lowly laborers.

2. (offensive, Trinidad and Tobago, Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaican, South Africa and other parts of Africa) An Indian or a person of Indian descent.

Derived terms

• Coolie Christmas
• coolie hat
• coolie orange

Translations

Descendants

• ? Romanian: culi

References

• Yule, Henry and Burnell, A. C. (1886): Hobson-Jobson The Anglo-Indian Dictionary. Reprint: Ware, Hertfordshire. Wordsworth Editions Limited. 1996.

• Le grand dictionnaire Ricci de la langue chinoise, (2001), Vol. III, p. 833.