Entry · catalog no. 6956
salty
/ — /pending
adjective · Harlem / national · 2026
✓ Verified
1.
Bitter, resentful, or irritated — especially over a loss or a slight one will not admit still stings.
“He's still salty about getting cut from the team.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem jazz vernacular recorded in Cab Calloway's 1938 Hepster's Dictionary, where it already meant angry and ill-tempered — nearly a century before gaming and internet culture claimed the word as their own coinage.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Harlem / national · 2026
Spoken by
Harlem / national
$SALTYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising0 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
12/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2026
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
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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See also