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hooch

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hooch¹

  • /huːt͡ʃ/

Rhymes with -uːtʃ

Where it comes from

Abbreviation of hoochinoo, name of a specific liquor, from Tlingit Xutsnoowú Ḵwáan, the group that produced it, from Hutsnuwu (“grizzly bear fort”), the name of the village on Admiralty Island in which they lived. From Tlingit xóots (“grizzly bear”).

noun hooches · hootch

  1. Canada, US, countable, informal, uncountable An alcoholic beverage, especially an inferior or illicit one and especially liquor such as whisky. he was so grief-stricken that he literally drowned his sorrow in “hootch-i-noo,” the native equivalent of whiskey. […] Had he not been so sad he would not have drunk the “hootch,” and if he had not drunk the hootch he would not have died: a perfectly reasonable and logical argument.

hooch²

  • /huːt͡ʃ/

Rhymes with -uːtʃ

Where it comes from

First attested in the 1950s, probably borrowed from Japanese 家(うち) (uchi, “house”), especially the dialectal form with an initial h- used on the Ryukyu islands where many American soldiers were based.

noun hooches · hootch

  1. A thatched hut, CHU, or any simple dwelling. Burn the hooches.

hooch³

  • /huːt͡ʃ/

Rhymes with -uːtʃ

noun

  1. alternative, uncountable Alternative form of hoosh (“type of stew”).

Translations

Every language

noun inferior liquor

Portuguêszurrapa
DeutschFusel

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Cite this
MLA

"hooch." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/hooch. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

hooch. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/hooch

Chicago

"hooch." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/hooch.

BibTeX
@misc{hooch_2026,
  title = {hooch},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/hooch},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}