Entry · catalog no. 6202
igg
/ /ɪɡ/ /IG
verb · Harlem, New York · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
To ignore someone on purpose; to give them no play.
“I spoke twice and he igged me both times.”
Origin & Attribution
From Cab Calloway''s Hepster''s Dictionary (1938), the Harlem bandstand glossary that fixed swing-era jive in print. A clipping of ignore down to a single hard syllable — Don''t igg me — the kind of compression that runs all through Black American speech.
1938
Listed in Calloway''s Hepster''s Dictionary as to ignore
1930s
Current among Harlem musicians
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem, New York · 1930s
Spoken by
Harlem jazz musicians
$IGGThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant88 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
25/100
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
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
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Citations & Sources
■
+ Cite a sourceCab Calloway, Hepster''s Dictionary: Language of Jive — glossary · 1938
print
See also