Entry · catalog no. 1054
cunty
/ /
adjective · Northeast — New York City ballroom scene ·
✓ Verified
1.
In ballroom: exuding sharp, uncompromising femininity and command. The highest praise for a performance that leaves no question who owns the floor.
“She walked the category cunty and the judges gave it to her on sight.”
Origin & Attribution
Black and Latino ballroom culture in New York, where a word used as a weapon against women and queer people outside the scene was taken up inside it as a standard of excellence. The reclamation belongs to the ballroom houses; the word carries its original violence when used by people outside them. Documented in ballroom ethnography and carried out to the wider culture through drag television in the 2010s.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Northeast — New York City ballroom scene ·
Spoken by
$CUNTYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ 26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Marlon M. Bailey, Butch Queens Up in Pumps — ethnography · 2013
submitted
■
Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston — documentary film · 1990
submitted
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+ Cite a sourceBall culture lexicon documented in The Village Voice and Ebony — press · 2010s
submitted
See also