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Glite Dictionary
cooties

cooties

1 8.8
Small imaginary germs children pretend are contagious
  • noun
  • /ˈkuːtiːz/
  • Baby Talk
translation icon : cooties

You don't have any cooties or anything.

Examples

  • So Cooties, Wallflower, you ready for this?

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  • Dear Mom, just wanted to let you know that my gay cooties are still in me, so sending me to God camp really didn't work.

  • Kids often say they don't want to catch cooties from someone they don't like.

  • During recess, Sarah warned her friends to watch out for cooties when sitting next to the boy.

  • The kids played a game where they pretended to have cooties to make each other laugh.

Synonyms

cootie
vscooties
  • Baby Talk
1 9.0

An imaginary germ children use to tease others and avoid them

is the plural form used by children to mean the same playful contagion

Surface Forms

cooties plural
cootie singular

Etymology

Cooties comes from the Malay word kutu, meaning 'louse', like our word 'lice', and soldiers used it for real lice. Children turned it into a playful name for imaginary germs you can 'catch', so cooties now means a pretend contagious thing children avoid.