Entry · catalog no. 3319
frisking the whiskers
/ /ˈfrɪskɪŋ ðə ˈwɪskərz/ /FRIS-king-thuh-WIS-kerz
phrase · Harlem / nationwide · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
Among swing musicians, to warm up before a session — running the horns and loosening the fingers before the real playing starts.
“Before the set they were in the back frisking the whiskers, blowing scales till the reeds felt right.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem jive of the 1930s swing bands. Cataloged by bandleader Cab Calloway in his Hepster's Dictionary, the first published glossary of the language by a Black entertainer, where it names the limbering-up the cats do before they swing.
1938
Appears in Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary
1944
Kept in the expanded Hepster's Dictionary editions
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Harlem / nationwide · 1930s
Spoken by
Swing-era musicians
$FRISKIThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant88 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
30/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1938
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