Entry · catalog no. 1015
signifying
/ /
verb · South / nationwide ·
✓ Verified
1.
Indirect, layered talk — saying one thing to mean another; needling, boasting, or critiquing through implication, wordplay, and misdirection.
“She wasn't complimenting your cooking, she was signifying about how long you took.”
Origin & Attribution
A centuries-old Black rhetorical tradition, embodied in the Signifying Monkey toast cycle. Oscar Brown Jr. recorded "Signifyin' Monkey" in 1960, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s The Signifying Monkey (1988) mapped it as the organizing figure of the Black literary tradition.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
South / nationwide ·
Spoken by
$SIGNIFThe Record · cultural traction
▲ 26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
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
■
Signifyin' Monkey, Oscar Brown Jr. — recording · 1960
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceThe Signifying Monkey, Henry Louis Gates Jr. — book · 1988
submitted
See also