Meanings
plural ecdysiasts
- uncommonAn erotic dancer who removes their clothes as a form of entertainment; a stripper.
I had never seen an ecdysiast before; toward the end she was wearing nothing but seven beads, four of them sweat.
1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me, Penguin, published 2001, page 791 more example
However, the Queen of Ecdysiasts, Gypsy Rose Lee, was not amused. In a 1940 interview, she leveled her guns against Mencken: "Ecdysiast, he calls me! Why, the man... has been reading books! Dictionaries! We don't wear feathers and molt them off... What does he know about stripping?"
2004, Chrysti the Wordsmith, Verbivore's Feast: A Banquet of Word and Phrase Origins, Farcountry Press, page 107Synonyms: exotic dancer, stripper
Synonyms & antonyms
nounAn erotic dancer who removes their clothes as a form of entertainment; a stripper.
More synonyms by meaning
nouna performer who provides erotic entertainment by undressing to music
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
Coined by H. L. Mencken from ecdysis (“moulting”) (on the model of enthusiast etc.).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
ecdysiast. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ecdysiast
“ecdysiast.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ecdysiast. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ecdysiast,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ecdysiast.
Source: ecdysiast on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.