Entry · catalog no. 3011
melted out
/ /ˈmɛltəd ˈaʊt/ /MEL-tid OWT
adjective · Harlem, NYC · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
Describes someone whose funds have run down to nothing. The image is of cash dissolving rather than being spent, and it carries a note of desperation the plainer word broke does not.
“Can''t make the set tonight — I''m melted out till Friday.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem Black vernacular of the 1940s, built on a much older slang verb melt meaning to spend money away. It reached print in the same 1944 Harlem publishing moment that produced both Cab Calloway's and Dan Burley's glossaries — one of only a handful of terms entered in both. Calloway was still using it naturally in his own prose thirty years later.
1944
Entered in both Calloway''s Hepster''s Dictionary and Burley''s Original Handbook of Harlem Jive
1945
Entered independently in Lou Shelly''s Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary
1976
Calloway uses it as ordinary speech in his memoir Of Minnie the Moocher and Me
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Harlem, NYC · 1940s
Spoken by
Harlem musicians and the Black entertainment press
$MELTEDThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Fading82 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
35/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1944
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.
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Citations & Sources
■
Dan Burley''s Original Handbook of Harlem Jive, Dan Burley — self-published, New York · 1944
archive-desk
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The New Cab Calloway''s Hepsters Dictionary: Language of Jive, Cab Calloway — sixth edition · 1944
archive-desk
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+ Cite a sourceOf Minnie the Moocher and Me, Cab Calloway with Bryant Rollins — memoir · 1976
archive-desk
See also