What does booty mean?
Booty is a noun that traditionally refers to valuable goods seized by force, particularly plunder taken by victorious armies or pirates in the course of a raid or campaign. The word carries strong associations with maritime adventure and conquest, appearing frequently in accounts of naval warfare, buccaneering, and treasure hunting, where phrases such as 'share of the booty' are common. In contemporary American slang, however, booty has developed an entirely unrelated informal meaning: a person's buttocks, often used playfully or flirtatiously in music, film, and casual conversation. This slang sense also underlies the colloquial phrase 'booty call,' referring to a late-night invitation for casual sex. Because of these divergent meanings, register matters greatly: the plunder sense is neutral and historically respectable, while the slang senses are decidedly informal and best avoided in professional writing. The contrast between its swashbuckling past and its cheeky present makes booty a notably versatile — and memorable — word.
Goods or valuables seized as plunder, especially by pirates or conquering forces.
"After ransacking the merchant ship, the corsairs hauled their booty back to the hidden cove."
Standard in historical and military contexts.
(Informal slang) A person's buttocks.
"The dance routine was famous for its energetic shimmying."
Strictly informal; avoid in professional or academic writing.
The plural 'booties' typically refers to multiple items of plunder or, informally, to small soft shoes for babies; note this overlaps with the separate word 'booty' spelled 'bootie' for footwear.
"The divers catalogued the sunken ship's booties of gold coin and jewelry before surfacing."
Pirates rarely actually buried their booty — but thanks to fiction, 'buried booty' is now one of the most famous phrases on the high seas.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of booty
The word booty entered Middle English around the early sixteenth century, borrowed either from Middle Low German böte or from French butin ('plunder'), both ultimately of Germanic origin. It has long been associated with the spoils of war and piracy, and it shares distant Germanic roots with the modern German word Beute ('prey' or 'plunder'). The slang sense referring to the buttocks arose entirely separately in twentieth-century American English and has no connection to the older plundering meaning.
How booty is actually used
The 'plunder' sense is standard English and acceptable in formal historical writing. The 'buttocks' sense, which arose independently as 20th-century American slang, is distinctly informal and would be out of place in polite or professional contexts. The two senses are unrelated in origin.
Easily confused with booty
'Bootie' is a variant spelling usually reserved for a soft baby's shoe, whereas 'booty' means plunder or, informally, the buttocks.