Entry · catalog no. 1002
dig
/ dɪɡ /DIG
verb · Harlem / national · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
To understand, appreciate, or take real notice of something — comprehension with feeling in it.
“You dig what I'm saying, or do I need to spell it out?”
Origin & Attribution
Black jazz vernacular of the 1930s Harlem scene, recorded in Cab Calloway's 1938 Hepster's Dictionary. Some linguists have proposed the Wolof "dëgg" — to understand — as a root. It passed to the beats, the hippies, and everyone since, from a Black bandstand.
1930s
Jazz vernacular on Harlem bandstands
1938
Glossed in Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary
1950s
Carried into Beat and hippie speech
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Harlem / national · 1930s
Spoken by
Black jazz musicians
$DIGThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady91 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
78/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1935
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