Entry · catalog no. 1013

seditty

/ /sɪˈdɪti/ /sih-DIT-ee

adjective · Urban North / South · 1940s

✓ Verified

Stuck-up, pretentious; acting above your raising and putting on airs — most often said of a woman.

“She too seditty to speak to anybody from the old neighborhood now.”

Origin & Attribution

Black American speech, in print in the Black press by the 1940s; the OED's earliest citation is 1948. Origin debated — possibly a fancied-up pronunciation of "sedate." Almost exclusively a Black word: alongside dicty and hincty it shows how precisely the community named class pretension.

1940s

In print in the Black press

1948

First OED citation (as 'saditty')

2000s

Standard in Black speech nationwide

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide / diaspora

Urban North / South · 1940s

Spoken by

Black Americans, especially of a woman seen as putting on class airs

$SEDITTThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Steady

78 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

68/100

peak cultural energy

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

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

1948

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

@auntiereg

Atlanta, GA

@deltasoul

Memphis, TN

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Citations & Sources

■

Oxford English Dictionary, first citation for saditty — dictionary record · 1948

submitted

■

Black press usage (Chicago Defender and others) — newspapers · 1940s

submitted

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Also spelled

saditty