Entry · catalog no. 1030

jitterbug

/ /

noun · Harlem ·

✓ Verified

A swing dancer; a devoted fan of hot jazz who cannot sit still once the band gets going. Later the name of the dance itself.

“The jitterbugs took the floor the second the horns came in.”

Origin & Attribution

From the Harlem swing world of the 1930s. Cab Calloway recorded "Jitter Bug" in 1934 and defined the word in his 1938 Hepster's Dictionary before it ever named a style of dancing.

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide / diaspora

Harlem ·

Spoken by

$JITTERThe 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.

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Memphis, TN

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Citations & Sources

■

Cab Calloway, "Jitter Bug" — song · 1934

submitted

■

Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary — glossary · 1938

submitted

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