Log in or Sign up
  1. jitterbug love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A strenuous dance performed to quick-tempo swing or jazz music and consisting of various two-step patterns embellished with twirls and sometimes acrobatic maneuvers.
  2. n. One who performs this dance.
  3. v. To perform this dance.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A nervous or jittery person.
  2. n. A jazz musician or aficionado.
  3. n. An uptempo jazz or swing dance which embellishes on the two-step pattern and frequently incorporates acrobatic style swing steps.
  4. v. To dance the jitterbug.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. a fast and vigorous American dance that was popular in the 1940s, having few standardized steps and personalized with various twirls, twists, and acrobatic moves; it was performed often to the accompaniment of swing or boogie-woogie tunes.
  2. v. to do the jitterbug.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a jerky American dance that was popular in the 1940s
  2. v. do the jitterbug

Etymologies

  1. From jitter + bug, after the 1934 Cab Calloway song Jitter Bug. (Wiktionary)
  2. From jitterbug, heavy drinker who suffers from the jitters, from jitter. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

hypernyms (4)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. social dancing
  1. trip the light fantastic toe
  1. trip the light fantastic
  1. dance

same context (15)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. shootthat
  2. boxing-match
  3. lecture-hall
  1. foot-race
  2. housewarming
  3. dark-room
  1. piano-playing
  2. horse race
  3. boogie
  1. war dance
  2. doxology
  3. offertory
  1. heliograph
  2. clothesline
  3. tourniquet

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. jitterbug

tags (5)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. dance
  1. fad
  1. 1930s
  1. 1940s
  1. tall bearded

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘jitterbug’.

More lists containing ‘jitterbug’

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • hernesheir See comments under Jitter Sauce. Mar 10, 2011

  • treeseed The term "jitterbug" comes from an early 20th century slang used to describe alcoholics who suffered from the "jitters" (delirium tremens). During the early 1900s, the term became associated with swing dancers who danced without any control or knowledge of the dance. This term was famously associated with swing era dancers by band leader Cab Calloway because, as he put it, "They look like a bunch of jitterbugs out there on the floor" due to their fast often bouncy movements on the dance floor. In popular culture it became generalized to mean a swing dancer (e.g., you were a jitterbug), a type of swing dance (e.g., you danced the jitterbug), or the act of swing dancing (e.g., you were jitterbugging).
    _Wikipedia Feb 24, 2008

Tweets

Looking for tweets for jitterbug.

‘jitterbug’ has been looked up 2254 times, loved by 2 people, added to 23 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 19.