What does “bring down” mean?

Something depressing; to lower somebody's spirits.

Entry · catalog no. 0222

bring down

/ /ˈbrɪŋ daʊn/ /BRING-down

noun · verb · Harlem, New York City · 1930s

✓ Verified

As a noun, something depressing — a spoiled mood made into a thing: that's a bring down. As a verb, to depress: that brings me down.

“Rent due and the gig cancelled — a stone bring down.”

Origin & Attribution

Harlem swing musicians of the 1930s. Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary (1938) carries both faces of it: the noun ("something depressing") and the verb ("to depress"). The feeling is universal; the phrasing was Harlem's.

1938

Both senses defined in Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary

1960s

The verb phrase saturates American pop songwriting

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide

Harlem, New York City · 1930s

Spoken by

Harlem swing musicians

$BRINGDThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Faded

88 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

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.

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By region — how it actually sounds

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Citations & Sources

■

Cab Calloway, Hepster's Dictionary: Language of Jive

1938

■

The New Cab Calloway's Hepsters Dictionary

1944

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