Entry · catalog no. 1045
mopping
/ /
verb · New York City (ballroom) ·
✓ Verified
1.
Stealing; lifting merchandise from a store. In the ballroom world, taking the clothes and accessories one couldn't afford in order to walk a category in the right fantasy.
“Half that outfit was mopped for the ball.”
Origin & Attribution
From the New York ballroom scene of Black and Latino queer and trans youth, for whom mopping was one way to furnish the glamour a ball demanded on no money. Documented in Jennie Livingston's 1991 film "Paris Is Burning."
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
New York City (ballroom) ·
Spoken by
$MOPPINThe Record · cultural traction
▲ 26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
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
■
Paris Is Burning — documentary film · 1991
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceOut.com, "Mopping: Drag Slang" — article · 2012
submitted
See also