Entry · catalog no. 4340
back-cap
/ /ˈbæk kæp/ /BAK-kap
noun · New York City; earlier general American use · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
A sharp, witty reply that caps what was just said and leaves the other person holding nothing. The return shot in a verbal duel.
“He is very pleased with that backcap.”
2.
As a verb, to answer or reply, especially to an advance; and in older general use, to run someone down or speak ill of them.
“I have been for you a long, long time and you do not backcap.”
Origin & Attribution
A nineteenth-century Americanism — to back-cap was to disparage, on record from the 1870s in general, largely white, circulation. Black New York repurposed it in the mid-1930s for the specific art of the topping reply in the dozens, and that is the sense the word is remembered for. Dan Burley used it in his own Amsterdam News columns through the 1940s and carried it into his 1944 jive handbook.
1879
Cincinnati Enquirer glosses back-cap as to speak ill of a person or play
1936
A. E. Duckett uses backcap in the dozens sense in the New York Age, 14 November
1944
Entered in the Jiver's Bible glossary of Burley's Original Handbook of Harlem Jive
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
New York City; earlier general American use · 1930s
Spoken by
Harlem speakers; Black press columnists
$BACKCAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Historical90 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
15/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1936
in the culture
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
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
A. E. Duckett, Truckin' Round Brooklyn, New York Age, 14 November
1936
■
Dan Burley, Original Handbook of Harlem Jive
1944
■
Dan Burley, New York Amsterdam News, 3 March
1945
■
+ Cite a sourceThe Century Dictionary
1889
See also