Entry · catalog no. 9835
jones
/ — /pending
noun · nationwide · 2026
✓ Verified
1.
A deep craving or unshakable need for something; a habit that has its hooks in you. As a verb, to jones (or to be jonesing) is to want something badly.
“She had a serious jones for those late-night fish plates.”
Origin & Attribution
Black English of the mid-20th century, first tied to the pull of a drug habit before it widened to any powerful craving. Long carried in jazz and street speech before mainstream slang picked it up.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
nationwide · 2026
Spoken by
nationwide
$JONESThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising0 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
12/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2026
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
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
■
Cheech & Chong, "Basketball Jones" (title use of jones for obsession) — song · 1973
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceDocumented in mid-century African American speech — corpus
submitted
See also