pussy hat

noun

A simple pink knitted hat playfully reflecting a double entendre, worn in symbolic solidarity with women. Introduced for the Women's March on January 21, 2017, and subsequently worn at various protest marches and rallies.

Meanings

nounpussy hat (plural pussy hats)

plural pussy hats · alternative pussyhat

  1. A simple pink knitted hat playfully reflecting a double entendre, worn in symbolic solidarity with women. Introduced for the Women's March on January 21, 2017, and subsequently worn at various protest marches and rallies.

    She'd taught herself to knit from YouTube videos just so she could make her own pussy hat for the march.

    2017, Diana Morland, She Marched: a romantic short story
    3 more examples

    It took hours for it to reach us, and then four more hours to make it across the Central Business District, but it was worth it—to be surrounded by the beautiful pink mass of pussy hats, the witty signs, the anti-trump shirts and hoodies.

    2017, Erin Passons, The Nasty Women Project: Voices from the Resistance, →ISBN

    The sidewalks were full of people hurrying toward the Common—women in pink pussy hats, men pushing strollers, kids laughing and running. I saw a little girl riding on her father's shoulders while clutching a handlettered sign that read, I FIGHT LIKE A GIRL.

    2017, Elizabeth Warren, This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class, →ISBN

    But now the best argument against Trump's parade is that it will become a cultural-war flashpoint and “the resistance” will try its utmost to ruin the affair. Just imagine a protester in a pussy hat in a Tiananmen Square-style standoff with an M1 Abrams tank.

    2018 February 8, Rich Lowry, “Yes, we should throw a parade”, in Politico, archived from the original on 08 Feb 2018

Origin

From the appearance of the hat as playfully reflecting female reproductive tract anatomy and also evoking cat's ears, in a double entendre of pussy (“female genitalia”) and pussy (“cat”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

pussy hat. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pussy%20hat

MLA

“pussy hat.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pussy%20hat. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pussy hat,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pussy%20hat.

Source: pussy hat on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.