Entry · catalog no. 1011
dicty
/ /
adjective · Harlem / urban North ·
✓ Verified
1.
High-class, elegant — or acting high-class; snobbish, putting on airs. Praise or a read depending on delivery.
“They moved to a dicty block up on Sugar Hill.”
Origin & Attribution
Black urban speech of the 1910s and 20s. Fletcher Henderson recorded "Dicty Blues" in 1923 — the session that debuted Coleman Hawkins — and Calloway's 1938 dictionary glossed it as high-class, nifty, smart. Central to Harlem Renaissance arguments about class and respectability.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Harlem / urban North ·
Spoken by
$DICTYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ 26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
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
■
Dicty Blues, Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra — recording · 1923
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceCab Calloway's Cat-ologue: A Hepster's Dictionary — book · 1938
submitted
See also