Entry · catalog no. 4207
mash
/ /mæʃ/ /MASH
verb · south · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
To press down or push. Mash the gas is to floor it; mash the button is to push it.
“Mash the gas, the light's about to change.”
2.
In older jive, to give or hand over.
“Mash me a fin — lend me five.”
Origin & Attribution
Southern Black speech, where "mash" does the work that "press" or "push" does elsewhere — mash the button, mash the gas — and spread across Southern English generally. An older jive sense, "to hand over," shows up in Cab Calloway's 1938 Hepster's Dictionary: "Mash me a fin — give me five dollars."
1930s
'Mash me a fin' recorded in Calloway's jive dictionary
mid-century
'Mash' for press/push settles across Southern speech
today
Everyday Southern usage — mash the button, mash the gas
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
south · 1930s
Spoken by
Black Southern communities; wider Southern speech
$MASHThe 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
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
■
Cab Calloway — "Hepster's Dictionary" — book · 1938
researched
■
+ Cite a sourcemash, v. — Green's Dictionary of Slang — reference
researched
See also