Entry · catalog no. 0164

read

/ riːd /REED

verb · Ballroom · 1980s

✓ Verified

To call out someone’s faults with precision and wit — sharper than shade.

“She read him for filth, head to toe.”

Origin & Attribution

Sharpened in 1980s ballroom and Black queer culture — documented in “Paris Is Burning.” Later flattened into mainstream “throwing shade.”

1980s

Ballroom & Black queer culture

1990

“Paris Is Burning” documents it

2010s

Mainstreamed, origin blurred

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

The Northeast

Ballroom · 1980s

Spoken by

Ballroom & Black queer communities

$READThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Rising

29 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

72/100

peak cultural energy

Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

1985

in the culture

Recorded here

2024

point of first record

Mainstream crossover

2014

search interest spikes

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

Contribute your pronunciation

Citations & Sources

■

“Paris Is Burning” (1990)

film · cited

■

Ballroom oral histories

oral history

+ Cite a source