Take Minnie the Moocher (please). In the first three lines of the song we learn Minnie is not only a moocher, but also a “lowdown hoochie-coocher” and “the roughest and toughest frail.” In other words, Minnie was infamous for taking all she could get away with taking, as well as rough, tough and pretty slutty. You see, a moocher* is someone who gloms on to whatever he or she can get, hoochie-coocher means sexually promiscuous, a frail is a woman, and lowdown means, well, not so nice. (She also liked to “kick the gong around”; in other words, Minnie hearts opium.)
You see, “dame” is only one of many terms folks in the Great Depression had for the chromosomally Y-challenged half of the population. Here are some other words meaning female:
Ace of Spades (widow)
Anchor (wife)
Babe or Baby
Baggage (wife)
Ball and Chain (wife…hmmm, sensing a pattern here)
Better Half (wife…that’s better)
Bats (prostitute)
Biddy (oddly enough, a young woman)
Bim or Bimbo
Blimp (stout woman)
Blister (Ugly or old woman)
Broad
Bundle of Rags (wife…sheesh)
Canary (singer)
Chick
Chippy
Cookie Pusher (wealthy young woman)
Cuddle Cutie (prostitute)
Dawn Patrol (restaurant lingo for a young woman who regularly patronizes the joint very early in the morning)
Demi-Tasse or Demi-Rep (prostitute)
Dish
Doll or Dolly
Fem
Fever (girlfriend)
Filly (young woman)
Floozie (not a compliment)
Frail
Frau (wife)
Frill
Frump (sloppy or critical woman)
Gash
Gid (young woman)
Gilly (prostitute)
Girlie
Golddigger (woman only after dough)
Grouse (prostitute)
Hash-Slinger (waitress)
Herring (an incorruptible girl — Herring was the brand of safe that couldn’t be dynamited open )
High Jumper (young woman fond of liquor)
Iron Pants (chaste woman)
Jailbait (teenage girls)
Jane
Jennie (waitress)
Jizzie (unattractive woman)
Kelsey (young woman)
Kitten
Knockout (gorgeous woman)
Left-Handed Wife (kept woman)
Loud Speaker (wife)
Lousyliz (cheap prostitute)
Looker (knockout)
Lynx (woman who snitches to the boss)
Main Squeeze (girlfriend or hostess)
Mama (not mom, the “red-hot” kind)
Minnow
Moll (girlfriend, a Gun Moll is a gangster’s girlfriend)
Mugbug (girl who gives in easily, the opposite of a herring)
Number
Paznazki (loose woman)
Pick Me Up (yep, another loose woman)
Pig (chorus girl)
Pigeon (girl who sits with the driver in the front seat of a rum-runner’s car or boat to give it an air of respectability)
Plugs (a man or a woman really)
Pro Skirt (prostitute)
Pullet (young woman)
Rib
Roundheels (kinda slutty)
Sidecar (wife)
Sister
Skirt
Snag
Split (loose woman)
Strange (prostitute, or vagina)
Tomato
Torcher (singer)
Tramp (not a compliment)
Twist
Weak Sister (pushover of any gender)
Whiz Bang (waitress easily dated by customers)
Worker (golddigger)
Wren
Wrong Number (a man or a woman)
Zoyneh (prostitute)
Of course, a woman can also be a snowbird who’s a chiseler prone to pulling the Gooseberry Lay, but that’s for another day.
* However, one early 30s glossary says a moocher is a “Single-handed thief, usually of low caste. Also a snooper or spy.”
Great list I just wrote a song using a lot of these terms/ Words
Wonderful!! That’s makes me really happy. You’ve inspired me to add to this list.
What is it called
I thought the refrain: “Hidey Hi! Hidey Ho” was a Lenox Avenue heads up for the Hos of long ago!
I’ve never heard that before. I don’t think Jo was a word used back then like it is today.
How about the term Hotty Totty?
That was a phrase used to describe both genders meaning sort of fancy or pretentious. However, hotsy totsy was usually employed to mean an attractive or sexy woman
The term Hotty Totty?
I think you mean hotsy topsy, which can be used as a noun but also the phrase is mostly used as an adjective , like, “”Oh, this place is too hotly totsy for me,” or You should wear that dress that’s so hotsy totsy.” It actually used more often to describe something that’s FANCY. My grandmother mixed Yiddish in with her English and used the phrase “hotsy totsy” a lot, always to mean mean fancy or mostly when someone was arrogantly or falsely fancy. #Trumpsgoldtoilet
Hoyty Toyty
I heard of “roundheels” in that movie w Sally Field “norma ray” “What do I care if she’s got round heels?” Never heard that b4 or since til now. But really: gash? Omg. What have we been reduced to?
That term has been used for well over 100 years. Women didn’t used to commonly wear round heels, they were pointy. Maybe prostitutes needed round heels for comfort walking the streets? I don’t know the origin of the term.
With hard heels or high heels it’s easier to stay upright. With round heels, a woman can be pushed over backwards easier.