Entry · catalog no. 0030
feenin
/ ˈfinɪn /FEE-nin
v. · national · 1990s
✓ Verified
1.
Wanting something so badly the wanting shows. Built from fiend and its long association with addiction, and applied to any hunger that has stopped being polite — for a person, for money, for a drug, for a sound. The word carries no apology; the whole force of it is the admission of need.
“I been feenin for that gumbo since I got off the plane.”
Origin & Attribution
Black American vernacular, from the nineteenth-century American use of fiend for a person consumed by a craving. The respelled form, with the pronunciation written into the page, crystallized through hip-hop and R&B: Rakim used fiend as a metaphor for craving on "Microphone Fiend" in 1988, and Jodeci fixed the modern spelling and the romantic sense with "Feenin'" on Diary of a Mad Band in 1993.
1988
Eric B. & Rakim's "Microphone Fiend" turns the addiction metaphor toward appetite for the mic
1993
Jodeci's "Feenin'" on Diary of a Mad Band fixes the spelling and the romantic sense
1994
"Feenin'" issued as a single in March, carrying the word to radio
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
national · 1990s
Spoken by
Black Americans nationally; carried by hip-hop and R&B
$FEENINThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady33 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
65/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1993
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
■
"Microphone Fiend" — Eric B. & Rakim, Follow the Leader, Uni/MCA, 1988
audio · album track
■
+ Cite a source"Feenin'" — Jodeci, Diary of a Mad Band, Uptown/MCA, album released December 21, 1993; single released March 8, 1994
audio · album track
See also