floozie

English

Alternative forms

• floozy, floosy, floosie, floogy

Etymology

Corruption of flossy in the sense of showy.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈfluː.zi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːzi

Noun

floozie (plural floozies)

1. A vulgar or sexually promiscuous woman; a hussy or slattern.
   • 1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “If You Can’t Make Money”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 3 (1928–1935: The Big Apple), page 183:

     A bunch of ugly-looking gangsters had taken the joint over for a big party, and they were all wobbling around the floor with their floozies, so drunk they could hardly stand.

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 13, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC, part 1:

     «Sure thing. You going with that little Mexican floozy?»

   • 1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 418:

     Now I was a forsaken codger snuffling disgracefully from a beautiful floozy's abuse.

   • 1984 September 27, Serena, “L.A. Dee Da: On The Streets”, in L.A. Weekly‎^[1], Los Angeles, page 46:

     [T]he lead singer found his girlfriend bumping uglies in the dark with the roadie. But then said singer was with a blonde floozie himself—see what being on an L.A. trash-band bill can do to ya?

2. A prostitute who attracts customers by walking the streets.
   • 2012 March 19, David Denby, “Everybody Comes to Rick’s: “Casablanca” on the Big Screen”, in The New Yorker‎^[2]:

     There are refugees and black marketers, defrocked bankers and resistance fighters, gamblers, floozies, French colonial policemen, American and Spanish entertainers, and, eventually, Nazi officers (who in reality never set foot in Casablanca).

Synonyms

• see Thesaurus:promiscuous woman

Translations

vulgar or sexually promiscuous woman

• Bulgarian: курва (bg) f (kurva)
• Czech: coura (cs) f, děvka (cs) f, běhna (cs), lehká děva f, šlapka (cs) f
• Dutch: slons (nl), deerne (nl), del (nl)
• German: Flittchen (de) n
• Portuguese: oferecida
• Swedish: slampa (sv) c, slinka (sv) c

prostitute who attracts customers by walking the streets

• Bulgarian: улична проститутка f (ulična prostitutka)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 流鶯／流莺 (liúyīng)

• Czech: pouliční děvka f, šlapka (cs) f
• Dutch: tippelaarster (nl), straatmadelief (nl)
• German: leichtes Mädchen n, Bordsteinschwalbe (de) f
• Russian: уличная (ru) (uličnaja) шлю́ха (ru) f (šljúxa)
• Swedish: gatflicka c, fnask (sv) n, glädjeflicka (sv) c, sköka (sv) c

Further reading

• “floozy n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present
• Eric Partridge (2005) “floozie; floozy; floosie; floosy”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 1 (A–I), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 773.