jive

present singular third person jives · participle present jiving · participle past jived · past jived

1. UScolloquialintransitivetransitiveTo deceive; to be deceptive.

   Don’t try to jive me! I know where you were last night!

   1 more example

   It's the year when all of the white politicians will be back in the so-called Negro community jiving you and me for some votes.

   1964, Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet

2. colloquialintransitiveTo dance, originally to jive or swing music; later, to jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, disco, etc.

   "Can you flamenco?" "If I have to. How about you?" "Love, I can barely waltz. Jive a bit if I'm pissed enough."

   2010, Peter Corris, Torn Apart, Allen and Unwin, page 212

   2 more examples

   You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life; ooh, see that girl, watch that scene, diggin' the dancing queen!

   1976, “Dancing Queen”, performed by ABBA

   When it was time for stage games, I found myself jiving to Chinese orchestra and *Nsync tunes with my colleague’s sister — one of my “supporters”.

   2015 April 19, Yeo Sam Jo, “Hello, I'm Eligible Bachelor #43”, in The Straits Times, Singapore, archived from the original on 08 Jun 2016

3. intransitiveTo speak in jive (jazz or hipster slang).

plural jives

1. uncountableA dance style popular in the 1940–50s.
2. uncountableSwing, a style of jazz music.
3. uncountableA slang associated with jazz musicians; hepcat patois or hipster jargon.

   Then the loud sound did seem to fade / Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase / That weren't no DJ, that was hazy cosmic jive

   1972, “Starman”, in The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, performed by David Bowie

4. UScolloquialcountableuncountableSynonym of bullshit: patent nonsense, transparently deceptive talk.

   Don’t give me that jive. I know where you were last night.

   Synonyms: flummery, bullshit

5. UScolloquialcountablederogatoryoftenuncountableAfrican-American Vernacular English.

   Although speaking Western Japanese to your friends in Ōsaka, Kyōto, or Kōbe will allow you to get closer to them, speaking Western Japanese in Tōkyō might seem as outlandish as hearing a Japanese exchange student back home speaking jive or cockney.

   1993, Peter Tse, Kansai Japanese: The Language of Osaka, Kyoto, and Western Japan: This Japanese Phrasebook and Language Guide Teaches the Kansai Dialect, Tuttle Publishing, →ISBN, page 17

   1 more example

   "Oh come on," she said. "I heard you talking jive the other day when you were playing with your dolls. And back in February, when you recited that poem by, by—what was the poet's name? "Langston Hughes?" "Right, Langston Hughes," Kanta said. "You spoke jive when you read that poem, remember?"

   2019, Mathea Morais, There You Are, Amberjack Publishing, →ISBN

6. countabledatedslanguncountableMarijuana

comparative jiver · superlative jivest

present singular third person jives · participle present jiving · participle past jived · past jived

1. USTo jibe: to accord, to agree.