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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jives,
present (3rd person singular)
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jived,
past participle, past
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jiving
present participle
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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)
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jives,
present (3rd person singular)
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jived,
past participle, past
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jiving
present participle
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
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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jivesimple
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jivessimple
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have jivedperfect
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has jivedperfect
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am jivingprogressive
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are jivingprogressive
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is jivingprogressive
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have been jivingperfect progressive
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has been jivingperfect progressive
Past
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jivedsimple
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had jivedperfect
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was jivingprogressive
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were jivingprogressive
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had been jivingperfect progressive
Future
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.
See Examples For:
Just because a filmmaker does something with one film that a viewer may not jive with doesn’t mean their work should be refuted forevermore.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2026
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
They also performed a football-themed jive to One Way Or Another by Blondie, earning them a standing ovation - and their second perfect score of the night.
From BBC ● Dec. 20, 2025
“No I’m not. Just tired. Tired of dodging crazy people, tired of this jive town, of running up and down these streets getting nowhere. . . .”
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
Standard time, the group argues, better jives with the movement of the sun and the circadian rhythm, or body clock, of human beings.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 11, 2023
By checking in on irrigation systems and soil wetness, especially during the early transplant/growing days, you'll work out a routine that jives for your specific plan.
From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2022
“There is a rapaciousness in the air, bordering on the obscene, as the city contorts, bends, shucks and jives to become whatever version of itself will bring about the largest turn of profit,” she wrote.
From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2020
My version is perfectly suited for families and jives with the sheet-pan cooking method popular today.
From Washington Post ● May 2, 2019
So now my jives are off: pray Heaven he be here!
From Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - the Humourous Lieutenant by Francis Beaumont
There were also celebrations for DIY SOS star Nick Knowles, who jived with Luba Mushtuk to We Built This City by Starship on his 62nd birthday.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2024
They drove the car, with its dented fender and chipping maroon paint, through the streets playing music and delighting Carnival revelers who jumped and jived in their wake, said Macedo, 65.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 9, 2024
Everything is flat and framed in medium shots, missing the dark cityscape aesthetic of the first film, which jived with the ethos of modern mythology.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2023
If someone came to me and was like, you could do this cool thing for Netflix or whatever and it really jived with my life, I would do it, but I don’t know.
From The Verge ● Aug. 24, 2021
They jostled and jammed and high-fived and jived.
From "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
The contrasts between the walkouts was stark, with Thainara enthusiastically jiving her way to the octagon and McCann showing typical focus and intensity.
From BBC ● Mar. 22, 2025
Today, the “damas” or “big mothers” as the dancers are known, can be found dancing in the early mornings and evenings, blasting stereos, waving fans and scarves, while jitterbugging, waltzing and jiving.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 17, 2021
Is hand jiving to Dancing Queen from inside a stationary Ford Focus on your bucket list?
From The Guardian ● Jun. 22, 2020
In Tenebaum’s hands he’s a mix of James Brown, Little Richard and the jiving genie in “Aladdin.”
From Seattle Times ● May 26, 2017
She winds her way through to me as the band pipes up with a fresh jiving number.
From "X: A Novel" by Ilyasah Shabazz
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.
