Entry · catalog no. 2005
crumb crushers
/ krʌm ˈkrʌʃərz /KRUHM-kruhsh-erz
noun · Harlem / jazz circuit · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
Teeth.
“Flashed his crumb crushers in a grin wide as the bandstand.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem jive from the 1930s, entered in Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary (1938) as "teeth." Later Black speech also turned "crumb crushers" toward small children — the mouths at the table — but the jazz-era sense named the teeth themselves.
1938
Defined as "teeth" by Calloway
later 1900s
Extended to mean small children
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Harlem / jazz circuit · 1930s
Spoken by
Black jazz musicians
$CRUMBCThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Faded88 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
42/100
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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See also