Entry · catalog no. 4210
chitlins
/ /ˈtʃɪtlɪnz/ /CHIT-linz
noun · the Deep South and Upper South · 1900s
✓ Verified
1.
Hog small intestines, scrubbed and rinsed repeatedly then boiled or fried, seasoned hard, eaten at winter hog-killings and at Christmas and New Year.
“Grandmama cleaned chitlins three times before they ever saw the pot.”
2.
By extension, a marker of Black working-class Southern identity — and, in the Chitlin Circuit, the network of Black-owned and Black-serving venues that kept Black performers working through Jim Crow.
“You will see Hog-Nose restaurants and Chitlin Cafes.”
Origin & Attribution
The word is not a Black coinage and the archive will not pretend otherwise. Chitterlings is Middle English, attested by the late thirteenth century as cheterlingis; the reduced spelling chitlins turns up in 1842, and one of its early appearances is a white Old Southwest humorist, John S. Robb, using it in 1843 to mean shreds rather than food. What is Black is the foodway and everything built on it: the discard cuts handed to the enslaved at winter hog-killings because intestines could not be preserved and had to be cooked at once, the West African whole-animal butchery and organ-meat technique carried across, the cleaning method, the seasoning, the occasion. Black too is the metaphor that grew out of it — high on the hog for those who ate the good cuts, and the Chitlin Circuit for the venues that fed Black artists when nowhere else would book them. W. C. Handy already had the word doing institutional work in 1917, singing of Chitlin Cafes on Beale Street.
1842
The reduced spelling chitlins enters print
1917
W. C. Handy sings of Chitlin Cafes in "Beale Street Blues"
1966
The Chitlin Circuit named in print, quoting Lou Rawls
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
the Deep South and Upper South · 1900s
Spoken by
Black working-class and rural Southern families; carried north by the Great Migration
$CHITLIThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring184 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
55/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1842
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
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
"Beale Street Blues," W. C. Handy — song, composed 1916, published with lyrics 1917
song
■
Streaks of Squatter Life, John S. Robb — book · 1843 (earliest chitlins spelling in print, non-food sense)
book
■
+ Cite a sourceChitterlings, Middle English, attested late 13th century as cheterlingis
reference
See also