Entry · catalog no. 0111
blip
/ /blɪp/ /BLIP
noun · Harlem, New York City · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
Something very good — a thing, a person, a performance worth the word. Said flat and final: that's a blip.
“You hear that horn section? That's a blip.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem swing musicians of the 1930s. Cab Calloway set it down in his Hepster's Dictionary (1938), the first dictionary published by an African American, defining it as "something very good." One syllable doing the work of a whole review.
1938
Defined in Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary
1940s
Faded as swing-era jive gave way to bop talk
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Harlem, New York City · 1930s
Spoken by
Harlem swing musicians
$BLIPThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant88 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
18/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1938
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
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Cab Calloway, Hepster's Dictionary: Language of Jive
1938
■
+ Cite a sourceThe New Cab Calloway's Hepsters Dictionary
1944
See also