Entry · catalog no. 0672
lame
/ leɪm /LAYM
adjective · U.S. — jazz circuits of New York, Chicago, and Kansas City, later nationwide Bla · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
Describes a person, thing, or move that is out of step with what's happening — unhip, out of touch, or behind the culture. Said of a person, it marks someone as socially unaware, easily played, or without style or nerve; said of a thing (an excuse, a joke, a party, a verse), it means weak, unconvincing, or flat. The word carries a judgment of standing: a lame is someone on the outside of the knowledge, the fashion, or the game that everyone else is already inside of.
“Man stayed home instead of pulling up, that's lame.”
Origin & Attribution
Rooted in Black jazz-musician speech of the swing and early bebop era, where players used 'lame' for a solo, a tune, or a listener that didn't cut it musically or hip-wise — distinct from the older standard-English sense of physical impairment. The word moved from bandstand talk into wider Black community usage as a general marker for anyone out of touch with the culture, then crossed into general American youth slang by mid-century. Mainstream dictionaries and slang glossaries have long filed it simply as 'American slang' or postwar 'teen slang' without naming its Black source; the Oxford Eng
1930s
Used among Black swing and bebop musicians for a solo, tune, or listener that didn't cut it
1942
Recorded in Berrey & Van den Bark's American Thesaurus of Slang alongside 'square'
1972
Documented in D. Claerbaut's Black Jargon in White America as meaning uninteresting, dull, boring
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
U.S. — jazz circuits of New York, Chicago, and Kansas City, later nationwide Bla · 1930s
Spoken by
Black musicians and their circles originally; now carried broadly across Black American speech and absorbed into general
$LAMEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady88 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
45/100
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
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
■
Lame. Something that doesn't quite cut it.
jazz slang glossary, All About Jazz
■
Lame, square, but not beyond redemption.
American Thesaurus of Slang, 1942
■
+ Cite a sourceLame,..uninteresting; dull; boring.
Black Jargon in White America, 1972
See also