Entry · catalog no. 1011
dicty
/ /ˈdɪkti/ /DIK-tee
adjective · Harlem / urban North · 1920s
✓ 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.
1926
Circulates in Harlem and blues speech for the snooty and high-class
1929
Duke Ellington and His Cotton Club Orchestra record "The Dicty Glide"
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Harlem / urban North · 1920s
Spoken by
Black America
$DICTYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant100 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
40/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1926
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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Atlanta, GA
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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