Entry · catalog no. 1000

solid

/ ˈsɑlɪd /SAH-lid

adjective · Harlem / national · 1930s

✓ Verified

Excellent, dependable, settled — and, standing alone, an agreement: understood, done, say less.

“You'd do that for me? Solid.”

Origin & Attribution

Swing-era Harlem vernacular. Cab Calloway's 1938 glossary carries it as high praise, and Zora Neale Hurston recorded it in her 1942 Harlem slang glossary. It is still doing the same work in Black speech today.

1938

High praise in Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary

1942

Recorded in Hurston's Harlem slang glossary

now

Still current as praise and agreement

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide

Harlem / national · 1930s

Spoken by

Black speakers nationally

$SOLIDThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Steady

88 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

66/100

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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Citations & Sources

■

Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary — glossary · 1938

submitted

■

Story in Harlem Slang (glossary), Zora Neale Hurston — American Mercury · 1942

submitted

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