Entry · catalog no. 1034
hep
/ /
adjective · Harlem · nationwide ·
✓ Verified
1.
Aware and in the know; tuned in to what is happening in music, style, and the mood of the moment. To be hep is to understand a thing before anyone bothers to explain it.
“She was hep to the sound months before the radio ever caught on.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem jazz vernacular of the 1930s, set down by bandleader Cab Calloway in his 1938 Hepster's Dictionary, the first dictionary written by an African American. The later, better-known "hip" grew directly out of hep.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Harlem · nationwide ·
Spoken by
$HEPThe Record · cultural traction
▲ 26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
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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Citations & Sources
■
Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary: Language of Jive — glossary · 1938
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceCab Calloway's Hepster Dictionary (Open Culture archive) — reference · 1939
submitted
See also