Entry · catalog no. 7406
peeping through my likkers
/ /ˈpipɪn θru maɪ ˈlɪkərz/ /PEE-pin throo my LIK-erz
phrase · Harlem, New York City · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
Carrying on even though drunk — looking at the world through the liquor and moving anyway. The likkers are a window you have no business seeing through, and yet.
“Don't mind him, he's peeping through his likkers tonight.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem speech of the 1930s and 40s, recorded by Zora Neale Hurston in the glossary to "Story in Harlem Slang" (American Mercury, July 1942), glossed as carrying on even though drunk. Pure Harlem image-making: the drunk not blinded but peeping.
1942
Recorded in Hurston's Harlem slang glossary
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem, New York City · 1940s
Spoken by
Harlem speakers
$PEEPINThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant84 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
10/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1942
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
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
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Citations & Sources
■
+ Cite a sourceZora Neale Hurston, "Story in Harlem Slang" glossary (American Mercury)
1942
See also