Groovy

How to spell groovy

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce groovy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does groovy mean?

1. adjectiveFashionable, excellent, or highly enjoyable, especially in a relaxed or stylish way.

Groovy in a sentence

• The band played a groovy set that had the whole room dancing.

• She decorated the lounge with groovy lamps from the 1970s.

Where does groovy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a slang word built on 'groove', which in Old English and Middle English usage referred to a long, narrow channel cut into a surface, ultimately related to Dutch 'groeve' meaning a ditch, furrow, or pit. By the early twentieth century 'groove' had taken on a musical life: the spiral cut on a gramophone record was called its groove, and jazz musicians who were playing tightly and rhythmically were said to be 'in the groove', riding that channel smoothly. From that phrase the adjective 'groovy' emerged in the 1930s jazz scene to mean excellent or first-rate, and it surged into mainstream use during the 1960s counterculture as a general word of approval meaning fashionable, cool, or wonderful. The spelling keeps the double 'o' of the parent word 'groove', and the silent-looking '-y' simply turns the noun into a descriptive adjective.

How the word is built

• groove (a cut channel; the track on a record)
• -y (adjective suffix forming 'having the quality of')