Zooty

1988 Martin A. Janis, The Joys of Aging, Dallas: Word Publishing, p. 122, A man of 75 may be feeling pretty frisky. Frisky enough that he starts chasing the girls of 25. He divorces his wife, buys a set of “zooty threads” as he calls them, and a zippy convertible, and has himself a big time in Las Vegas.

2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, New York: Picador, Book One, “The Silver Spoon,” p. 13, From the tender age of twelve, my mother had been unable to start her day without the aid of at least two cups of immoderately strong, tar-black, unsweetened coffee, a taste for which she had picked up from the tugboat captains and zooty bachelors who filled the boardinghouse where she had grown up.

Only the silver dollar hawkers have kept up their professional spirits. They hang around street corners, clinking gleaming stacks of coins, their orthodox blue Chinese gowns topped by broad-brimmed brown fedoras that give them, from the neck up, that zooty air usually associated with Broadway characters in Li’l Abner.

I could see he’d become pretty zooty, little Allie. His clothes were Italian and immaculate, daring and colourful without being vulgar, and all expensive and just right: the zips fitted, the seams were straight, and the socks were perfect—you can always tell a quality dresser by the socks.