Entry · catalog no. 1214
diss
/ /dɪs/ /DISS
verb, noun · New York City — Harlem, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
To insult, belittle or publicly withhold respect from someone. The word carries the full weight of the longer word it was cut from: a diss is not a joke or a jab, it is a withdrawal of standing. In Black speech the charge is social rather than merely verbal, which is why being dissed obliges an answer.
“He dissed her in front of the whole block, so she had to say something back.”
2.
A recording made to attack a named rival, commonly called a diss record or a diss track. The form is competitive rather than casual: the rapper answers a specific person, often quoting or flipping that person's own record. The exchange can run for years and can make careers on both sides.
“Her diss came out three weeks later and it ended the argument.”
Origin & Attribution
Clipped from disrespect in Black American speech and carried into the world by rap records out of New York City. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest evidence is Spoonie Gee's Spoonin Rap, released on Sound of New York, USA in 1979. The competitive record form was set by the Roxanne Wars, which began in 1984 when a fourteen-year-old Roxanne Shanté answered UTFO over a Marley Marl beat, and was sharpened by MC Lyte's 10% Dis in 1988. White newspapers of the mid and late 1980s treated dis as a curiosity to be glossed for readers rather than as a word with a community behind it. It is Black American English, and it entered general use only because rap carried it.
1979
Spoonie Gee's Spoonin Rap gives the earliest recorded evidence of the word
1984
Roxanne Shanté's Roxanne's Revenge opens the Roxanne Wars and sets the diss record template
1988
MC Lyte releases 10% Dis, putting the word in a record title
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
New York City — Harlem, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens · 1970s
Spoken by
Black Americans; rap artists and audiences; now general American English
$DISSThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady47 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
88/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1979
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
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
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Citations & Sources
■
Spoonie Gee, Spoonin Rap, Sound of New York, USA, 1979
recording · audio
■
Roxanne Shanté, Roxanne's Revenge, produced by Marley Marl, Pop Art Records, 1984
recording · audio
■
MC Lyte, 10% Dis, from Lyte as a Rock, First Priority Music / Atlantic Records, 1988
recording · audio
■
+ Cite a sourceOxford English Dictionary, entry dis / diss, v., earliest evidence 1979
reference · online
See also