jazzy
Americanadjective
-
pertaining to or suggestive of jazz music.
-
Informal. active or lively.
-
Informal. fancy or flashy.
a jazzy sweater.
adjective
-
of, characteristic of, or resembling jazz music
-
gaudy or flashy
a jazzy car
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of jazzy
Explanation
Anything that sounds like jazz music, or in other ways reminds you of jazz, is jazzy. The spirited, toe-tapping version of "Happy Birthday" you sing to your grandpa might be described as jazzy. There are jazzy covers of staid songs, or jazzy ensembles that bring some elements of jazz to whatever they're playing. You can also use this adjective to describe something that's fancy in a flashy or ostentatious way: "She wore a long, jazzy gown that was covered in glittering sequins." Jazzy, coined around 1919, comes from jazz, which probably stems from the Creole slang jass, "strenuous activity."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The post-apocalyptic, jazzy New Orleans-style “Hadestown,” written by Anaïs Mitchell, is a mythical love story that follows young lovers Orpheus and Eurydice and the rulers of the underworld, Hades and Persephone.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
The melody on the jazzy “Betrayal” is memorable and affecting, and “The Test,” a synth-pop duet with her daughter Lola Leon, is one of the best songs on the record.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
More successful is Betrayal, a jazzy, trip-hop excursion that appears to be about Madonna's stepmother, Joan Ciccone, who died of cancer in 2024.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
With a jazzy score fixed atop its ’60s-era mod-cartoon opening sequence, “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” makes no effort to disguise its pastiche.
From Salon ● Jun. 2, 2026
I couldn’t tell what displeased her more: the loud, jazzy tune, or the dropped notes from the broken or out-of-tune keys.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
But a week after beginning her studies at Ailey, she realized that she preferred traditional ballet to Ailey’s jazzier contemporary style.
From New York Times ● Oct. 8, 2022
Nic is the jazzier part, the one full of vertiginous highs and gutter-licking lows, though anyone who has read Tweak may wonder where the grittier specifics have gone.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 13, 2018
In other ways, though, Hines is looser and jazzier, while Baryshnikov is knife-sharp.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 8, 2018
They found that bowheads — the bigger, more blubbery cousins of the better known humpbacks — are more prolific and downright jazzier than other whales.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 3, 2018
Why not select a more cheerful subject and adopt a jazzier style—we of today would reject Milton’s Paradise Lost.
From Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant by Mathew Joseph Holt
“Iris” unfolds more like a soliloquy than a song, as if it’s extrapolating from the jazziest impulses of Joni Mitchell.
From New York Times ● May 5, 2023
The jazziest of his three entries consists of regular arrays of horizontal segments, but he varies the width of the lines and the spaces between them to create a sense of pulsating motion.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 20, 2021
The long finale, Sailing Westwards, has the jazziest passages, but also hints at an exultant, rhumba-like party mood.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 14, 2012
One of the jazziest is called "Trafalgar Square" and it makes abstract music out of urban commotion.
From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2010
Bergstrom's two-piece orchestra was in the throes of its jazziest fox-trot number.
From Half Portions by Edna Ferber
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
