jive
Americannoun
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swing music or early jazz.
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the jargon associated with swing music and early jazz.
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Slang. deceptive, exaggerated, or meaningless talk.
Don't give me any of that jive!
verb (used without object)
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to play jive.
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to dance to jive; jitterbug.
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Slang. to engage in kidding, teasing, or exaggeration.
verb (used with object)
adjective
noun
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a style of lively and jerky dance performed to jazz and, later, to rock and roll, popular esp in the 1940s and 1950s
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Also called: jive talk. a variety of American slang spoken chiefly by Black people, esp jazz musicians
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slang deliberately misleading or deceptive talk
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( as modifier )
jive talk
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verb
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(intr) to dance the jive
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slang to mislead; tell lies (to)
Other Word Forms
- jiver noun
Etymology
Origin of jive
First recorded in 1925–30; origin obscure; alleged to be an alteration of gibe 1, though the shift in sense and phonetic change are unexplained
Explanation
Jive is a lively type of music that first became popular in the 1930s. If you’ve seen movies with people wearing 1930s clothing fast dancing and spinning around, chances are they’re dancing to jive music. You can listen to jive or you can jive, because the word is both a noun and a verb. When you jive, be prepared to do a lot of spinning and swinging. It's often done to a style of big band music called "swing," because the dancers hold hands and swing each other around. Jive also means glib, fancy talk. If you're bragging about things you didn't even do, someone might tell you to quit your jive.
Vocabulary lists containing jive
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.
Cantrell says he’s experimenting with “vibe coding External link,” which I hear a lot, and sometimes mistakenly call jive coding, which works, too.
From Barron's • Feb. 13, 2026
Back in the actual 1990s, ice dancers cycled through traditional dances: samba, blues, polka, rumba, quickstep, tango, jive, paso doble, Viennese waltz.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 2026
In recent weeks, Strictly viewers have seen La Voix and Škorjanec jive, waltz and foxtrot around the Strictly dancefloor.
From BBC • Nov. 22, 2025
Every time Dorothy and her comrades reprised “Ease on Down the Road,” the woman next to me couldn’t resist joining them with some impromptu hand jive.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 15, 2024
“It’s a jive noise, that’s all. Cats tip better, they figure you’re knocking yourself out!”
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
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.
