Highly Contagious, Viral batecteria that breed inside young males and are released into the air via sweat glands when in the proximity of other young girls.
Slang term for head lice.
Also some childish urban legend that a person contracts lice from contact with females. Probably dates back to a time when people never bathed and the risk of getting a disease was high.
I remember back in the days when kids were afraid of getting "cooties" from girls, until they reached adolescence and learned about sex.
Cooties is a word invented by soldiers in WW II to refer to Crabs and infectious germs that cause veneral diseases that many soldiers contracted overseas. Kids in the 1950s picked up the word from their soldier fathers and applied it to anything distasteful. When a kid was touched by the bad cootie generator (another kid) the cooties would be transferred immediately and the person doing the touching would be instantly cured.
Cooties models were produced in the 50s having bodies that looked like ants with strategically placed holes to snap on legs, antennae, eyes etc. The models had a short run and disappeared soon after their introduction.
A funny one... Actually If you are unwanted by someone who you wish to know or make friendship with (girls mostly), they say you got cooties.
In the film Problem Child, at a girls party the central character Junior
is humiliated by friends of the girl when he gets curious to know what presents the girl got. On among the girl's friends says "He's got Cooties".