Ecdysiast

Coined by H. L. Mencken from ecdysis (on the model of enthusiast etc.).

Full definition of ecdysiast

(plural ecdysiasts)

An erotic dancer who removes their clothes as a form of entertainment; a stripper.

1973, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Don't Point That Thing at Me, Penguin 2001, p. 79:I had never seen an ecdysiast before; toward the end she was wearing nothing but seven beads, four of them sweat.
2004, Chrysti the Wordsmith, Verbivore's Feast: A Banquet of Word and Phrase Origins, Farcountry Press, p. 107: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?"