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Glite Dictionary
cootie joke

cootie joke

9.0
A silly joke children use to say someone has pretend germs
  • noun
  • /ˈkuːti dʒoʊk/
  • Baby Talk
translation icon : broma de cootie
  • During recess, the children giggled as they exchanged cootie jokes about imaginary germs.

Examples

  • The teacher asked the class to stop with the cootie jokes and focus on their work.

  • Even in fifth grade, some kids still told cootie jokes at recess.

  • He tried to make everyone laugh with another silly cootie joke.

  • He told a funny cootie joke during recess.

  • Did you hear that new cootie joke?

  • She burst into laughter after hearing his latest cootie joke about dirtiness.

  • The playground was filled with laughter as the kids shared cootie jokes with each other.

Surface Forms

cootie joke singular
cootie jokes plural

Morphology

cootie + joke

The meaning is directly derivable from its parts: 'cootie' denotes an imaginary louse/germ used in children's play and 'joke' denotes an amusing remark, so a 'cootie joke' is transparently a childish joke about imaginary germs or dirtiness. This is a straightforward noun+noun composition following normal English compounding patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Cootie joke comes from children's play where cootie is a pretend bug or germ that kids say someone has and joke is the silly teasing that follows; children would tease each other by saying someone had 'cooties'. So today cootie joke means 'a childish joke about imaginary germs or being dirty'.