Beat up (adj.): sad, uncomplimentary, tired.Beat it out (v.): play it hot, emphasize the rhythm.Ex, “I am beat for my cash”, “I am beat to my socks” (lacking everything). Ex., “You look beat” or “I feel beat.” (2) lacking anything. Battle (n.): a very homely girl, a crone.Barbecue (n.): the girl friend, a beauty.Armstrongs (n.): musical notes in the upper register, high trumpet notes.Apple (n.): the big town, the main stem, Harlem.Ain’t coming on that tab (v.): won’t accept the proposition.To the many persons who have contributed to this and the other editions, this volume is respectfully and gratefully dedicated.Ĭab Calloway’s Jive Jubilee of Songs / Includes… Original Jive Dictionary (Mills Music, NY, 1942) Many first saw the light of printer’s ink in Billy Rowe’s widely read column “The Notebook,” in the Pittsburgh Courier.

They were gathered from every conceivable source. I don’t want to lend the impression here that the many words contained in this edition are the figments of my imagination. It is reasonable to assume that jive will find new avenues in such hitherto remote places as Australia, the South Pacific, North Africa, China, Italy, France, Sicily, and inevitably Germany and wherever our Armed Forces may serve. Its usage is now accepted in the movies, on the stage, and in the song products of Tin Pan Alley. “Jive talk” is now an everyday part of the English language. That the general public agreed with me is amply evidenced by the fact that the present issue is the sixth edition since 1938 and is the official jive language reference book of the New York Public Library. Some six years ago I compiled the first glossary of words, expressions, and the general patois employed by musicians and entertainers in New York’s teeming Harlem. In Sensations of 1945 the book was hymned: It was published in several editions up to 1944. Cab Calloway, front row, back to camera with Ivie Anderson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe at piano Duke Ellington on guitar, August 1939

Glims slang