Entry · catalog no. 7405
piano
/ /piˈænoʊ/ /pee-AN-oh
noun · Harlem, New York City · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
Spare ribs. The logic is visual: a rack of ribs laid out like a keyboard, and you play it clean to the bone. Harlem wit doing anatomy.
“We ordered a piano and didn't leave a key on it.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem table talk of the 1930s and 40s, recorded by Zora Neale Hurston in the glossary to "Story in Harlem Slang" (American Mercury, July 1942), where piano is glossed as spare ribs. Hurston collected the word as a folklorist, from speech already alive in the rib joints and frolic pads.
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
$PIANOThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant84 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
15/100
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