August 01, 2011
- groovy (adjective)
- \GROO-vee\
- What does it mean?
- : very good : excellent
- How do you use it?
- When we got back from the concert, my dad asked us, "Was it cool and groovy?" "Dad," I cringed, "no one says 'groovy' anymore."
- Are you a word wiz?
"Groovy" is a little old-fashioned sounding now--how far back does this meaning of "groovy" go?
If you chose D, you are hep to (that is, "alert and knowledgeable about") "groovy." Though we associate this particular use of "groovy" with the 1960s, it actually goes back to the 1930s, where it was used in jazz circles to refer to good playing, or someone who appreciated good jazz. From there, it picked up a "sophisticated" and "hip" sense, and then quickly became a word used as a general term of praise, like "cool." "Groovy" peaked in the 1960s, but it's still in use today, despite what the speaker in our example sentence may think.
