Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🔍 A viewing device 🔞 A private adult film
peepshow

peepshow

9.7
A short adult film shown in a small coin-operated booth
  • noun
  • /ˈpipˌshoʊ/
  • Offensive
translation icon : cabina porno
  • Last night, I paid a dollar to watch a peepshow at the local adult arcade.
  • GIRLS GALORE PEEPSHOW
  • Peepshow Theater
  • GIRLS GALORE PEEPSHOW

Examples

  • Two-dollar peepshow.

    I-See-You.com (2006)

  • Probably put you in a peepshow I suppose.

    Miranda (1948)

  • Well, it started out as a dollar peepshow, but not for long.

    I-See-You.com (2006)

  • You know, the place was nothing but a nickel peepshow when I took it over?

    Tony n' Tina's Wedding (2004)

  • A dark alley between a peepshow parlor and a homeless hotel.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • I'd rather mop the floors at a peepshow.

    Kingpin (1996)

  • He often visited the peepshow to satisfy his curiosity in private.

  • The small peepshow booth offered a collection of short films for its patrons.

Surface Forms

peepshow singular
peepshows plural

Morphology

peepshow = peep + show (transparent) = peep + show

The sexualized, coin-operated sense is a cultural extension of the literal 'peep' + 'show' compound, but its formation is still directly interpretable.

Etymology

Peepshow comes from the parts peep ('to look quickly') and show, and later came to mean a private, coin-operated film or display you watch by looking into a small booth. So the modern sense keeps the idea of paying for a quick, secret 'peep' at a show.