Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, also hooch-ama-cooch, hoochy jerky) a form of highly suggestive belly-dance, usu. performed at carnivals.

1892		N.Y. Eve. World 13 May n.p.: A novelty in dancing [...] will be seen [...] at Herrmann’s Theatre next week. It is called the ‘Koota-Koota,’ whatever that may mean, and is danced by Avita, an English character actress, who is said to have performed it before the Rajah during her visit to the East Indies.
1894		N.Y. Dly Tribune 14 Sept. n.p.: ‘Come, gents, walk right up and see the “Couchee-Couchee Dance.” For gents only, remember: no ladies allowed’.
1894		Wash. Post 5 Dec. n.p.: The Kutcha-Kutcha dance, which was put on [...] at Kernan’s Theater, Monday night, was stopped yesterday by Mr. Kernan, who was much displeased with it. Yesterday morning Lieut. Amiss went to the theater and said the dance would have to stop.
1895		Mirror of Life 7 Sept. 3/2: A quiet tip to the effect that a coocha-coocha dance would be given by two nude female dancers in the rooms of the Old Jolitie Club, in West New York, caused about half a hundred admirers of the undraped human figure to [...] plank down their dollars.
1896		Pittsburgh Post (PA) 1 Apr.5/6: [headline] stopped their dance / Two Coocha-Coocha Maidens Arrested [...] Detective Denniston arrested two young women last night who do the ‘cooch-coocha’ [etc].
1896		St. Louis Republic 18 June n.p.: About the center of the Merchants’ League columns came a band playing the ‘hoochy-coochy’ dance.
1898		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley in Peace and War 18: He’s seen th’ hootchy-kootchy an’ th’ Pammer House barber shop.
1899		Austin’s Hawaiian Wkly (Honolulu) 25 Dec. 6/1: The Hooche Kooche isn’t in it with this one. I never was so embarrassed in all my life.
1900		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 20 Oct. 3/1: [She] was going through the gyrations of a couchee-couchee dance.
1902		J. Pettibone Lodge Goat 268: Und some von yell, ‘Rous mit der Dootch,’ Und den det band played ‘Ootchee Kootch’ .
1902		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley’s Opinions 133: F’r wan man that goes to a wurruld’s fair to see how boots is made, they’se twinty goes to see th’ hootchy-kootchy.
1903		Cincinnati Enquirer 1 May 6/5: And the peacherines from Turkey, In the dance you learned to like, We will see the hoochy jerky When we all come down The Pike [DA].
1906		Jelly Roll Morton ‘Animule Dance’ 🎵 The tiger did the mooch; / The elephant did the hooch-ama-cooch.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 137: If you see [...] a new building doin’ the hoochee-coochee an’ sheddin’ its cornices, [...] you know just what’s up nothing but a little stick dynamite handled careless.
1909		J. Washburn Und. Sewer 190: A girl is found who can supply their demand, and whether it be a jig or a rag, or a hoochee-koochee, it amuses them.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 19 Jan. [synd. col.] It is only a short step from the hootchie-kootchie to Symbolic Art.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 22 Sept. [synd. col.] The Hawaian hula-hula dance was at first looked upon as a refined hoochee koochee affair, but now it is taken seriously.
1927		H. Asbury Gangs of N.Y. 179: In more recent years the cancan has given way to the hoochy-coochy and other forms of muscle dancing.
1949		Time 25 July 13/1: Musicians swung informally into The Hootchy-Kootchy, Little Egypt’s tune at the 1893 World’s Fair [DA].
1968		(con. late 19C) S. Longstreet Wilder Shore 137: The Plaisance besides playing some of the earliest New Orleans jass (later spelled jazz) with its usual ragtime, became the headquarters of the hoochy-koochy, a dance of shakers and twitchers.
1977		Sun. Times Rev. 21 Aug. 29: The virtuoso of the hootchy-kootchy. His one speciality is an accentuated movement of the body that heretofore has been primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway.
1990		R. Campbell Sweet La-La Land (1999) 71: Doing the hootchie-kootchie on a tabletop in black stockings and a garter belt.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 13: The hootchie-kootch she put on burned holes in the back of my eyeballs. She began her hump-and-grind real slow.

2. (also hooch, hoochie, hoochiekoo, hootchy, hootchy-kooch) attrib. use of sense 1.

1897		Irving Jones ‘Get Your Money’s Worth’ 🎵 Now darkies prance, do the Houchee Kouchee dance, do the Bumba-Shay go the other way.
1898		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley in Peace and War 23: He’ll be settin’ up there undher a pa’am-three [...] an’ hootchy-kootchy girls dancin’ befure him.
1904		G.V. Hobart Jim Hickey 84: We could make sandwich money in front of a hootchy-kooch palace, barking at the Rubes .
1911		Cosmopolitan Jan. 231/2: Hit up the hoochie music, you Black-Handers [DA].
1916		Dab Book (Chicago) 28 Aug. n.p.: ‘Walkin’ the dog’, the new hoochy-koochy tango that the North Shore sassiety folks stole from th ‘black and tan’ cabarets of South State street.
1926		J. Tully Jarnegan (1928) 195: The operator of the hootchie-kootchie show.
1927		K. Nicholson Barker I i: Oh, she’s a hooch-dancer – Princess Kalima. And a friend of your daddy’s. (Pointedly.) A very special friend, you might say].
1929		E. Caldwell Bastard (1963) 13: She was a hoochie-coochie dancer.
1934		F.S. Fitzgerald Tender is Night (1953 rev. edn) 273: There was the sound of a whining, tinkling hootchy-kootchy show.
1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 27 Apr. [synd. col.] Mary Niklas, a Detroit deb once, will ‘Little Egypt’ in the hoochee-koochee show at the fair’s Crystal Palace.
1942		W. Winchell 4 June [synd. col.] The Greenwich Village hoochy-koochy dancer, who calls herself Belle Button.
1946		J.E. Dadswell Hey, Sucker 97: kutch ... hoochie-koochie attraction.
1947		Denver Post 20 Feb. 18/3: Wearing his false forms and wig, Cook joined a carnival show in Tennessee as a ‘hootchy’ dancer [DA].
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 480: The hoochie-coochie dancer of the big city dances alone.
1951		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 314: Pull up her petticoat, / Pull down her pants, / Did you ever see a nigger / Do the hoochy-koochy dance? [Ibid.] 418: With his hand on his pecker and his pecker in his pants, / He watched the little girlies do the hoochy-koochy dance.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 224: We [...] headed straight for North Clark Street [...] to see the hootchy-kootchy joints and hear the bop.
1973		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 124: Angie and Harold cruise out on the midway and stop to watch the hoochiekoo dancer.

3. (US, also hoochie) sexual activity.

1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 212: She beat me for two days straight ’cause she caught me doing the hoochie coochie. I was in Miss Joanne Robinson room [...] I wasn’t having sex. He was just grinding.
1997–2000		College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Hoochie [...] 3. (verb) Kissing or making out.