[Ads-l] Antedating of "Hepped" (Adjective)

[Jonathan Lighter]

In collocations like "hepped to," of course, spoken "hepped" is
indistinguishable from "hep." The two, in this sense anyway, are
essentially the same.

JL


On Sat, Oct 31, 2026 at 7:14 AM Shapiro, Fred
<00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> hepped, adjective (OED 1903)
>
> 1897 Enquirer (Cincinnati) 7 Nov. 23/3 (Newspapers.com)
>
> Charlie Burns, the well-known lightweight of this city, takes the same McCoy - Moore fight and from it figures that McCoy hasn't a ghost of a chance with Colonel Hopkins's man.  "Why, Moore wasn't within pounds of himself when he fought McCoy," said Burns in THE ENQUIRER office the other evening. .... I don't think McCoy has a 10-to-1 chance against Creedon.  You can bet that Creedon is 'hepped' to everything McCoy knows.
>
> NOTE:  I believe that this is now the earliest known citation for the "hep" / "hip" family of terms describing being "aware, in the know."  An interesting sidelight is the fact that "McCoy" here was Kid McCoy, who already had a place in etymological lore as the alleged (but false) etymon for the expression "the real McCoy."
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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