Entry · catalog no. 4301
jelly
/ /ˈdʒɛl.i/ /JEL-ee
noun · Harlem, New York City · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
Sex, plainly — and the sexual charm a person carries. Zora Neale Hurston's 1942 glossary defines it in a single word: "sex." Her story's hero renames himself Jelly for exactly what the word promises.
“They called him Jelly because he never had to ask twice.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem speech of the 1930s and 40s, recorded by Zora Neale Hurston in her "Glossary of Harlem Slang" (1942). It runs in the same family as jelly roll, the older blues word for sex and the body, carried north out of the Southern juke and the barrelhouse.
1920s
Blues sings "jelly roll" for sex and the body
1942
Defined in Hurston's Harlem glossary
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem, New York City · 1940s
Spoken by
Harlem speakers; blues and jazz circles
$JELLYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant84 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
20/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1942
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
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Zora Neale Hurston, "Glossary of Harlem Slang" (American Mercury)
1942
■
+ Cite a sourceJelly Roll Morton performing under the name
1910s
See also