Entry · catalog no. 0714
viper
/ /ˈvaɪpər/ /VY-per
n. · Harlem / national jazz circuit · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
A marijuana smoker; a member of the reefer-smoking jazz set. To 'blow gage' was to smoke; the vipers were those who did.
“The vipers gathered after hours to blow gage.”
Origin & Attribution
Jazz slang of the late 1920s and 1930s, said to echo the hiss of smoke drawn through a joint. It named a whole subculture of Black musicians, memorialized in a run of 'viper' songs: Fats Waller's 'Viper's Drag' (recorded by Cab Calloway's orchestra in 1930) and Stuff Smith's 'You'se a Viper' (1936). Louis Armstrong called himself and his circle vipers who respected the gage.
1930
'Viper's Drag' recorded by Cab Calloway's orchestra
1936
Stuff Smith cuts 'You'se a Viper'
1930s
'Viper' songs proliferate across the jazz world
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Harlem / national jazz circuit · 1930s
Spoken by
Jazz musicians and the reefer-smoking set
$VIPERThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Faded96 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
40/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1930
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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By region — how it actually sounds
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Citations & Sources
■
Stuff Smith & His Onyx Club Boys, 'You'se a Viper' — 1936
recording · cited
■
+ Cite a sourceFats Waller, 'Viper's Drag'; recorded by Cab Calloway — 1930
recording · cited
See also