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#162065 09/22/06 10:34 AM
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I saw a Will Smith interview in which he talked about "his" word "jiggy" (as in "getting jiggy with it") making it into some dictionary or other and explained that it meant "Super, nuclear cool."

The Urban Dictionary corroborates this; however, how come in my dictionary "jiggy" is said to have a different meaning and predate Will Smith by over half a century?

jiggy

adj

1. uninhibited, especially in a sexual manner : the script required her to get jiggy with Leonardo. 2 trembling or nervous, especially as the result of drug withdrawal.

ORIGIN 1930s: from jig + -y.


I guess if ordinary mortals misunderstand and misuse a word they're corrected; but when someone famous does it, their mistake is immortalized in the dictionary.

#162066 09/22/06 11:19 AM
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Could you tell us which is your dictionary? The OED has no entry for "jiggy"

#162067 09/22/06 11:49 AM
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The Urban Dictionary is hardly an authority.

#162068 09/22/06 12:26 PM
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While it's hardly an authority either, the MS Encarta dictionary has a entry for jiggy that coincides with how I've heard the word used: 'get jiggy with it to become excited about or involved in something'.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
#162069 09/22/06 01:29 PM
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True. But here's one of its entries for Jiggy:

Quote:

Supposedly now in the OED. When asked Will Smith, who invented the word, said it was "Nuclear Cool". Taking something to next level over just being cool. Also used as an adjective, associating cool the word it modifies.

I'm getting jiggy in that dance.



#162070 09/22/06 01:30 PM
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Words mean what people think they mean. Probably the word originally meant sexually overt for obvious reasons. But I can imagine that most users of the term never consulted the Urban Dictionary or any other.

OTOH, if you were to ask anyone, off the cuff, the definition of just about any word, what you are likely to get in response is a vague and very loose approximation.

#162071 09/22/06 04:21 PM
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well, from OED draft entry, Sept. 2004:
[< JIG n.1 + -Y1.]

1. U.S. slang. a. Jittery, fidgety; trembling, esp. as the result of drug withdrawal. Also in extended use.
1896 Century Mag. May 13/1 The saddle was scarcely fastened, and his jiggy animal so shook him that the center of one of his Egyptian orders dropped out and was lost. 1931 Detective Action July 41, I ain't had a shot for two days... I'm jiggy. 1983 L. D. STAPLETON Thirty Years on Line 26 By midnight he was getting a little jiggy. The phone rang and he almost jumped out of his boots. 1991 R. F. RADFORD & J. CROWLEY Drug Agent U.S.A. 6 If I was too jiggy to hold the syringe, he'd shoot me up. 1997 Inc. Jan. 38/2 The first two days she made $14,000; the next three, she lost $12,000. ‘The market got really jiggy on me.’

b. Mentally agitated or disturbed; crazy.
1933 Amer. Mercury Mar. 343 Jones broke up his furniture last night... He's gone completely jiggy. 1987 Boston Globe 21 Feb., John Bottoms is funny and unsettling as a crazy patient, and there are hypnotic moments of jiggy paranoia from Harriet Harris, Nestor Serrano, Isabell Monk and Harry S. Murphy. 1995 Boston Globe (Electronic ed.) 6 July 6 Cheap Eats... I admit that I got a little jiggy going into Dodge Street Bar & Grill... The red snapper was $12.95{em}over the Cheap Eats limit. I plead temporary insanity.

c. Excitedly energetic or uninhibited, often in a sexual manner; to get jiggy: to engage in sexual activity.
1997 W. SMITH Gettin' Jiggy wit It (song), I go psycho when my new joint hit Just can't sit Gotta get jiggy wit it. 1998 Los Angeles Times 17 May E1 Latin groovers get jiggy at the mercury hot Conga Room. 2000 Cosmopolitan June 194/2 Jason Biggs..was last seen getting jiggy with an apple tart in American Pie. 2002 Loaded July 120 ‘What do blokes have to do to get jiggy with you?’ Make me laugh. Buy me a drink. Dance with me. I hate men who don't dance.

2. Music. Being or resembling a jig; having a lively or irregular rhythm.
1898 Catholic World Mar. 766, I feel an irresistible desire to execute a few steps across the room to the jiggy melody. 1921 G. BRADFORD Let. 13 Nov. (1934) 89 The couplet--but one has only to think of Pope and the couplet to see the ridicule of associating it with the Song of Roland. Scott's octosyllabics are too jiggy. 1960 Jrnl. Amer. Folklore 73 371 (advt.) Jingles, riddles, game songs, lullabies, jiggy tunes and silly ballads. 1995 H. FIELDING in Independent (Nexis) 16 Apr. 54 It was not ballroom dancing but jiggy dancing--verging on the reckless.

3. U.S. slang. Attractive; stylish; wonderful.
1996 Source Aug. 36/1 Bikinis, barbecues, beaches and jiggy honeys are the order of the day. 1998 Washington Post 29 Apr. D1 Jiggy, stylish, with flair, fly. 2003 Vibe Feb. 39 To judge by the videos..gleaming lollipop paint jobs and 24-inch customized rims are now increasingly competing with jiggy female flesh as the eye candy.


edit: so, are we to believe then that Mr. Smith went, with sense 3, to [the] Washington Post?

Last edited by tsuwm; 09/22/06 04:31 PM.

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