Entry · catalog no. 8616

air out

/ /ɛər ˈaʊt/ /AIR-owt

verb · Harlem, New York · 1940s

✓ Verified

To leave — to clear out of a place, sometimes in a hurry.

“Soon as the police came through, everybody aired out.”

Origin & Attribution

Recorded in Zora Neale Hurston's 1942 Harlem slang glossary as "leave, flee, stroll" — the same word covering a casual walk and a fast exit, the choice carried by tone.

1942

Recorded in Hurston's Harlem slang glossary

1940s

Current in Harlem street speech

2000s

Persists in hip-hop and everyday Black speech

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

The Northeast

Harlem, New York · 1940s

Spoken by

Harlem, New York

$AIROUTThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Steady

84 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

45/100

peak cultural energy

Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

1942

in the culture

Recorded here

2026

point of first record

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

@bxgriot

The Bronx, NY

@phillyanne

Philadelphia, PA

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Citations & Sources

■

Zora Neale Hurston, "Story in Harlem Slang," The American Mercury — short story with glossary · 1942

submitted

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