Entry · catalog no. 4188
dry snitch
/ /draɪ snɪtʃ/ /dry-SNITCH
verb · nationwide · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
To inform on someone indirectly — not by naming them outright but by dropping hints, gestures, or pointed remarks that let others put it together. Often read as worse than plain snitching, since it hides behind innocence.
“She dry snitched — said it real loud so his girl would hear.”
Origin & Attribution
US prison speech and Black American vernacular of the 1980s, where "dry" marks the indirectness — telling without telling. It moved from the yard into hip-hop and everyday talk. Slang dictionaries trace the sense to a 1984 record of informing "without speaking, by making a sign with the eye."
1980s
Emerges in US prison slang and AAVE
1990s-2000s
Common in hip-hop and inner-city speech
today
Mainstream, still carrying its street sense
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
nationwide · 1980s
Spoken by
Black American communities; prison origin
$DRYSNIThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady42 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
48/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1984
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
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
dry snitch — Green's Dictionary of Slang — reference
researched
■
+ Cite a sourcedry snitch, v. — Oxford English Dictionary — reference
researched
See also