Entry · catalog no. 1022
righteous
/ /ˈraɪ.tʃəs/ /RY-chus
adjective · Harlem, New York City · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
Splendid, first-rate, the real thing. A word of high praise for something genuine and excellent, well before it narrowed in mainstream English to mean only morally upright.
“That was a righteous band last night.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem jive of the 1930s. Cab Calloway's 1938 Hepster's Dictionary defines it plainly as "splendid, okay." Black musicians used it as everyday praise for quality; the moral sense the mainstream leans on today is only one branch of a broader vernacular meaning.
1938
Defined in Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary
1960s
Broad vernacular sense fades from mainstream
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Harlem, New York City · 1930s
Spoken by
Harlem jazz musicians
$RIGHTEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant88 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
1938
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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