Entry · catalog no. 4041
lay some iron
/ /leɪ sʌm ˈaɪərn/ /lay-sum-EYE-urn
phrase · northeast · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
To tap dance, and to do it with force and skill. The iron is the metal tap on the shoe.
“Jack, you really laid some iron that last show.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem jive of the 1930s, set down in Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary in 1938. The iron was the tap plate on a dancer's shoe; to lay it was to hammer out a routine. It belongs to the same swing-era vocabulary that named the whole world of the ballroom and the bandstand.
1930s
Circulates in Harlem swing and tap circles
1938
Printed in Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary
mid-century
Fades with the jive era
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
northeast · 1930s
Spoken by
Harlem jive, tap dancers, jazz musicians
$LAYSOMThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Fading88 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
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
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
+ Cite a sourceCab Calloway — "Hepster's Dictionary: Language of Jive" — book · 1938
researched
See also