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jazz

Pronunciation: /d͡ʒæz/

The English word “jazz” has 16 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A musical art form rooted in West African cultural and musical expression and in the African American blues tradition, with diverse influences over time, commonly characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms and improvisation.
  2. Energy, excitement, excitability.
  3. The substance or makeup of a thing; unspecified thing(s).
  4. Something of excellent quality, the genuine article.
  5. Nonsense.
  6. Semen, jizz.
  7. A red-skinned variety of eating apple.

verb

  1. To destroy; to ruin.
  2. To play (jazz music).
  3. To dance to the tunes of jazz music.
  4. To enliven, brighten up, make more colourful or exciting.
  5. To complicate.
  6. To have sex for money, to prostitute oneself.
  7. To move (around/about) in a lively or frivolous manner; to fool around.
  8. To distract or pester.
  9. To ejaculate.

Etymology

Unknown. First attested around 1912 in a discussion of baseball; attested in reference to music around 1915. Numerous references suggest that the term may be connected to jasm and jism.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.