different between zooty vs booty

English

Etymology

zoot +? -y

Adjective

zooty (comparative more zooty, superlative most zooty)

1. (dated, informal) stylish, flashy, snappy.
   • 1949, Dwight Martin, “City of Defeat,” Time, 18 April, 1949,^[1]

     Only the silver dollar hawkers have kept up their professional spirits. They hang around street corners, clinking gleaming stacks of coins, their orthodox blue Chinese gowns topped by broad-brimmed brown fedoras that give them, from the neck up, that zooty air usually associated with Broadway characters in Li’l Abner.

   • 1988 Martin A. Janis, The Joys of Aging, Dallas: Word Publishing, p. 122,^[2]

     A man of 75 may be feeling pretty frisky. Frisky enough that he starts chasing the girls of 25. He divorces his wife, buys a set of “zooty threads” as he calls them, and a zippy convertible, and has himself a big time in Las Vegas.

   • 1990, Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia, London: Faber & Faber, 1991, Part Two, Chapter Eighteen, p. 267,^[3]

     I could see he’d become pretty zooty, little Allie. His clothes were Italian and immaculate, daring and colourful without being vulgar, and all expensive and just right: the zips fitted, the seams were straight, and the socks were perfect—you can always tell a quality dresser by the socks.

   • 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, New York: Picador, Book One, “The Silver Spoon,” p. 13,^[4]

     From the tender age of twelve, my mother had been unable to start her day without the aid of at least two cups of immoderately strong, tar-black, unsweetened coffee, a taste for which she had picked up from the tugboat captains and zooty bachelors who filled the boardinghouse where she had grown up.

English

Alternative forms

• bootyn (archaic)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bu?ti/
• Rhymes: -u?ti

Etymology 1

From Middle English buty, botye, bottyne, from Old French butin, botin, from Middle Low German b?te (“distribution, exchange, loot”), of obscure origin, but related to Middle High German biute, German Beute (“booty”). Possibly ultimately from Gaulish *boudi, from Proto-Celtic *boudi (“profit, gains; victory”).

Noun

booty (countable and uncountable, plural booties)

1. (nautical) A form of prize which, when a ship was captured at sea, could be distributed at once.
2. Plunder taken from an enemy in time of war, or seized by piracy.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:booty
3. (figuratively) Something that has been stolen or illegally obtained from elsewhere.

Related terms

• boodle

See also

• manubial

Translations

Coordinate terms

• loot

Etymology 2

Probably an alteration of botty. Possibly influenced by booty (etymology 1).

Noun

booty (plural booties)

1. (slang) The buttocks.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:buttocks
2. (vulgar, slang, not countable) A person considered as a sexual partner or sex object.
3. (vulgar, slang) sexual intercourse.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:copulation

4. (vulgar, slang) the vulva and vagina.

Translations

Derived terms

Etymology 3

From boot.

Noun

booty (plural booties)

1. Alternative spelling of bootee