Entry · catalog no. 0225
bougie
/ — /pending
adjective · Nationwide · 2026
✓ Verified
1.
Putting on airs; class-conscious in a way that distances you from your own people. Sometimes an insult, sometimes a boast, depending on who says it.
“She got bougie the minute she moved out to the suburbs.”
Origin & Attribution
Clipped from "bourgeois" in Black speech well before the 1970s and used to name a specific kind of class betrayal. Gladys Knight and the Pips sang about the sting of it in 1979. Migos revived the boujee spelling in 2016 and the internet treated it as new — it was fifty years old.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Nationwide · 2026
Spoken by
Nationwide
$BOUGIEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising0 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
12/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2026
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
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
"It's a Better Than Good Time," Gladys Knight & the Pips — song · 1979
submitted
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"Bad and Boujee," Migos feat. Lil Uzi Vert — single · 2016
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceGeneva Smitherman, Talkin and Testifyin — scholarship · 1977
submitted
Also spelled
See also