Entry · catalog no. 4300
unhep
/ /ʌnˈhɛp/ /un-HEP
adjective · Harlem, New York City · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
Not wise to the jive — ignorant of what is current and cool. In Cab Calloway's hand, the mark of an "icky," a "Jeff," a square who cannot follow the music or the talk.
“He meant well, but he was unhep to every word we said.”
Origin & Attribution
Harlem swing musicians of the 1930s. Cab Calloway set it down in his Hepster's Dictionary (1938), the first dictionary published by an African American, defining it plainly as "not wise to the jive." The prefix does the work the era loved: to be hep was everything, and unhep named everyone outside the circle.
1938
Defined in Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary
1950s
Reshaped by the mainstream into "unhip"
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem, New York City · 1930s
Spoken by
Harlem swing musicians
$UNHEPThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Dormant88 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
25/100
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.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Cab Calloway, Hepster's Dictionary: Language of Jive
1938
■
+ Cite a sourceThe New Cab Calloway's Hepsters Dictionary
1944
See also