{"id":8335,"date":"2011-12-01T10:20:47","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T15:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2011\/how-did-the-word-groovy-come-to-acquire-its-current-meaning\/"},"modified":"2014-05-12T15:27:30","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T19:27:30","slug":"how-did-the-word-groovy-come-to-acquire-its-current-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2011\/how-did-the-word-groovy-come-to-acquire-its-current-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"How did the word “groovy” come to acquire its current meaning?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The word “groovy” originates in jazz slang, referring to music that’s swinging, tight, funky, in the pocket. The analogy is to the groove in a vinyl record — the musicians are so together that it’s like they’re the needle guided by the groove.<\/p>\n

\"Pick<\/a><\/p>\n

The “groove” becomes generalized to any good rhythm, passage, or entire piece of music; “grooving” means making music well, and the adjective “groovy” follows.<\/p>\n

From the Online Etymology Dictionary<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1937, Amer.Eng., in slang sense of \u201cfirst-rate, excellent;\u201d from jazz slang phrase in the groove<\/em> (1932) “performing well (without grandstanding)”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The generalized sense of “groovy” meaning “cool” might be kind of dated, but among musicians the groove remains a term of art<\/a>. For example, see my post on how to groove<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Grand<\/a><\/p>\n

Original post on Quora<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word “groovy” originates in jazz slang, referring to music that’s swinging, tight, funky, in the pocket. The analogy is to the groove in a vinyl record — the musicians are so together that it’s like they’re the needle guided by the groove. The “groove” becomes generalized to any good rhythm, passage, or entire piece … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “How did the word “groovy” come to acquire its current meaning?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[907,377,412,896,610,1064,758],"class_list":["post-8335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-groove","tag-jazz","tag-language","tag-quora","tag-rhythm","tag-slang","tag-turntablism","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pAPdE-2ar","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8335"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11204,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8335\/revisions\/11204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}