jazzy
Americanadjective
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pertaining to or suggestive of jazz music.
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Informal. active or lively.
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Informal. fancy or flashy.
a jazzy sweater.
adjective
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of, characteristic of, or resembling jazz music
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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:
It’s simultaneously jazzy and vulgar, wry and prophetic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
With its surging choruses and humorous arias and recitatives, to say nothing of its jazzy harmonies and dance rhythms, it possesses an irresistible satiric edge while still evoking American certitude amid Cold War challenges.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 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
His favorite is 1984’s jazzy “2:00 AM Paradise Cafe,” on which he collaborated with Mulligan, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Tormé.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2026
Then I turn on the drum and cha-cha beats, and I move into a jazzy, funky piece that I’ve been working on.
From "Blended" by Sharon M. Draper
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
She delivers on the daring promise of her prizewinning debut, “The Old Drift,” while teasing out a jazzier, more intimate register, casting a spell that probes the fluid, disorienting flow of grief.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 3, 2022
It sounded jazzier than before — more trumpet, less drum — and the crowd was a little slow to react.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 13, 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
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
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
His 35th solo studio album is his jazziest: the warm brass and catchy, sweet melodies recall 1970's Moondance.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 27, 2012
One of the jazziest is called "Trafalgar Square" and it makes abstract music out of urban commotion.
From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2010
The truly jazziest moment of the night, though, came from the Roots, the long-running Philadelphia hip-hop band, which played a high-energy set to a boisterous and completely appreciative crowd at the club Métropolis.
From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 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.
