hoodie
Pluralhoodies
- 1A sweatshirt with a built-in hood and, often, a large pocket across the front.
He zipped up his hoodie before heading out into the rain.
The store sells hoodies in a dozen different colors.
Similarsweatshirt
Note
The garment itself, and the base for the slang name for its wearer. It is built from hood plus the diminutive -ie, so it is literally a little hood that grew a sweatshirt around it. Kangaroo and kangaroo jacket name the same garment after its front pouch, borrowed from the animal. Bunny hug is a further, more playful synonym for it.
- 2A young person, usually male, in a hooded sweatshirt, stereotypically viewed as prone to antisocial behavior.
Local residents complained about hoodies gathering in the park at night.
He was dismissed as just another hoodie, though he had never been in trouble.
Similaryob, lout, thug, hooligan
Note
Here the clothing names the person, the way townie names someone by their town. The -ie ending shifts from "little" to "person associated with," and it often carries a sneer. The word is British slang and usually derogatory, so it is safer to use when discussing the stereotype than when describing an actual person. Gaby Hinsliff's 2006 report on David Cameron's "hug a hoodie" speech shows the label at work in arguments about youth crime.
- 3The hooded crow (Corvus cornix), a gray-bodied crow with a black head, wings, and tail, found across northern and eastern Europe.
The hoodie is a common sight along Scotland's western coast.
Farmers often see hoodies scavenging in the fields after plowing.
- 4The retractable fold of skin covering the head of the penis.
He told the nurse, only half-joking, that he wasn't keen to lose his hoodie.
The locker-room ribbing circled back to circumcision and missing hoodies.
Note
Body slang built on the same hood plus -ie as the sweatshirt, picturing the fold of skin as a little hood. It belongs to joking, locker-room talk and sits badly anywhere serious. In medical or formal writing, use foreskin or prepuce instead, and keep hoodie for banter.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from "hood" plus the diminutive suffix "-ie." In the sense of a person wearing a hoodie, it was influenced by the "-ie" that marks a person associated with a noun, often with a derogatory tone, as in "townie."