different between zooty vs zooey

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

Etymology

zoo +? -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /zu?i/

Adjective

zooey (comparative zooier, superlative zooiest)

1. (informal) crowded with people
   • 2001, David Andrusia, Haas Mroue, Donald Olson, Frommer's Gay & Lesbian Europe (page 254)

     […] restaurants that squeeze in as many tables as possible against the walls of the old town; it gets zooey, with tourists trying to get past the fuming waiters trying to deliver food to their waiting diners.