Entry · catalog no. 0797
dap
/ /dæp/ /DAP
noun · verb · Originated among Black G.I.s in Vietnam and the U.S. South and inner-city Northe · 1960s
✓ Verified
1.
A dap is a greeting exchanged between Black people that goes beyond a simple handshake — a sequence of hand slaps, finger hooks, fist taps, chest bumps, or shoulder claps, often improvised and unique to the two people doing it. To dap someone (or to "dap up" or "give dap") is to perform this greeting as an act of respect, solidarity, or love, not just hello. Among Black men especially, the dap has historically carried a second layer of meaning: it can be a way of checking on someone, passing information, or affirming that you've got each other's back.
“He walked into the barbershop and dapped up every man in the row before he even sat down.”
Origin & Attribution
The dap was coined by Black American soldiers — called "Bloods" — serving in Vietnam in the late 1960s, at the height of the Black Power movement and amid documented racism within the ranks, including reported cases of Black soldiers being shot by white soldiers during combat. It began as a pact of mutual protection and grew into a full gestural language used to signal solidarity, pass coded battlefield information, and stand in for the Black Power salute that many bases banned outright. Some accounts trace elements of the greeting further back to West African handshake traditions carried thro
1968-69
Term and gesture develop among Black soldiers in Vietnam as a pact of mutual protection and Black Power-era solidarity
1971
First known print appearance, in a UPI dispatch on Black soldiers in Vietnam, picked up by the Pittsburgh Press and the Afro-American (Baltimore)
2013-2014
Photographer LaMont Hamilton's Smithsonian-affiliated project "Five on the Black Hand Side" documents the dap's history and diversity through oral histories with Black veterans
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Originated among Black G.I.s in Vietnam and the U.S. South and inner-city Northe · 1960s
Spoken by
Black American men originally, especially veterans and inner-city communities; now used broadly across Black America and
$DAPThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring55 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
72/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1971
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
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Citations & Sources
■
1971, London Magazine, vol. 11, referencing officers who 'look the other way when blacks give dap'
periodical
■
1972, Sepia magazine: soldiers 'give dap just so they won't be called Uncle Toms'
periodical
■
+ Cite a source1972, David Claerbaut, Black Jargon in White America, defining dap as 'a rather sophisticated or complicated hand greeting'
reference text
See also