Entry · catalog no. 7775

boujee

/ /ˈbuːʒi/ /BOO-zhee

adjective · National · 1980s

✓ Verified

Upwardly styled, with tastes that announce themselves — said with anywhere from affection to side-eye, and often both at once.

“She's too boujee now to eat anywhere with paper napkins.”

Origin & Attribution

Black American shorthand for "bourgeois," teasing class performance from inside the community for generations. Gladys Knight & the Pips cut "Bourgie, Bourgie" in 1980; Migos fixed the modern spelling with "Bad and Boujee" in 2016. Not a TikTok word — a fifty-year-old family joke about new money.

1980

Gladys Knight & the Pips release Bourgie, Bourgie

2016

Migos release Bad and Boujee

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide / diaspora

National · 1980s

Spoken by

Black Americans; mainstream pop and social media

$BOUJEEThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Steady

46 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

70/100

peak cultural energy

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

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

1980

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

■

Bourgie, Bourgie, Gladys Knight & the Pips — song · 1980

submitted

■

Bad and Boujee, Migos — single · 2016

submitted

+ Cite a source

Also spelled

bougie