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• Jazz Age
  Jazz Age

  noun

  the period that in the U.S. extended roughly from the Armistice of 1918 to the stock-market crash of 1929 and was notable for increased prosperity, liberated or hedonistic social behavior, Prohibition and the concomitant rise in production and consumption of bootleg liquor, and the development and dissemination of jazz and ragtime and associated ballroom dances.
• jazz age
  jazz age

  noun

  (often capitals) (esp in the US) the period between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Depression during which jazz became popular

Jazz Age

American  

noun

1. the period that in the U.S. extended roughly from the Armistice of 1918 to the stock-market crash of 1929 and was notable for increased prosperity, liberated or hedonistic social behavior, Prohibition and the concomitant rise in production and consumption of bootleg liquor, and the development and dissemination of jazz and ragtime and associated ballroom dances.

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jazz age British  

noun

1. (often capitals) (esp in the US) the period between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Depression during which jazz became popular

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Jazz Age Cultural  

1. The 1920s in the United States, a decade marked not only by the popularity of jazz, but also by attacks on convention in many areas of American life. (See flappers and Roaring Twenties.)

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Etymology

Origin of Jazz Age

An Americanism dating back to 1920–25

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Jazz Age jazz age

It reminds us that this is, after all, a building of the Jazz Age, a 1,046-foot-high Rhapsody in Chrome.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026

Chicagoans referred to the neighborhood as “Towertown,” and it was where writers, artists, communist revolutionaries and queer folks often lived and even more frequently partied during Chicago’s rowdy Jazz Age.

From Salon ● Mar. 31, 2025

Recently he seemed to suggest that the Jazz Age gangster Al Capone was still alive.

From Slate ● Nov. 6, 2024

The staging, which can seem cluttered and breathless in the early going, traipses through these seedy locales with a theatrical swiftness that captures the milieu that bred the syncopated rhythm of the Jazz Age.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2024

By the time the Jazz Age marched in, the Hill was a bustling neighborhood full of music, theaters, gambling halls, and families.

From "Ophie's Ghosts" by Justina Ireland

“Some Like It Hot,” a new jazz age musical adaptation of the classic 1959 Billy Wilder film, won a Grammy Award on Sunday for best musical theater album.

From New York Times ● Feb. 4, 2024

The tune isn’t completely contemporary, as it seems to nod to Salt-N-Pepa more than anything of-the-moment, but it swiftly moves “Rogers” out of the jazz age.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2023

For Federer at 32 the jazz age appeared to have given way to old age.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 10, 2017

Later on, she was able to adjust her singing style to the invention of the microphone, the decline of vaudeville and the arrival of the jazz age.

From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2016

The historic transformation of music in the jazz age was enabling an equally historic, admittedly embryonic, social transformation.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall