5 Hip-Hop Slang Words That Made It Into The Oxford English Dictionary
In all of the hysteria surrounding Miley Cyrus' twerk-ful performance at MTV's Video Music Awards on Sunday, it was announced today that "twerk" would enter the Oxford English Dictionary in the famed vocabulary book's next edition.
The Oxford English Dictionary, unlike its more liberal counterpart Miriam-Webster, is known for having notoriously difficult standards when it comes to new words entering its pages. It takes a certain cultural cache for a slang word to enter the tome. While "twerk" is the latest word to enter the dictionary, that does not mean that it is the only slang word to originate with hip-hop. In 2003, "bling" famously entered the Oxford Dictionary to great controversy.
Over the years, a few of hip-hop slang words have slipped past the fuddy-duddies at Oxford to become part of English's essential lexicon. XXL found five of them for you to peruse today.
Bling
How Oxford Defines It:
noun
expensive, ostentatious clothing and jewelry, or the wearing of them: behind the bling: are diamonds worth it?
adjective
denoting expensive, ostentatious clothing and jewelry, or the style or materialistic attitudes associated with them: the bling lifestyle of diamond rings, flashy cars, and champagne
Dope
How Oxford Defines It:
adjective
informal
very good: that suit is dope!
Phat
How Oxford Defines It:
adjective
informal
excellent: a phat and funky sound
Jiggy
How Oxford Defines It:
adjective
informal
uninhibited, especially in a sexual manner: the script required her to get jiggy with Leonardo
Twerk
How Oxford Defines It:
verb
informal
to dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance