zaddy
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]An alteration of daddy, popularized by American rapper Ty Dolla Sign's 2016 song by this name. The origin of the z- is unclear; it may represent the idea of being "the ultimate daddy" as z is the last letter of the alphabet, or it may have been formed by assibilation of the /d/ phoneme preceding /æ/ in the first syllable noted in Hispanic populations of New York and Miami, the latter being the origin of the girl subject of Ty's song.[1]
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]zaddy (plural zaddies)
- (originally African-American Vernacular, slang) A handsome, fashionable man, especially an older man.
- 2016, “Zaddy”, in Campaign, performed by Ty Dolla $ign:
- She keep on callin' me zaddy, that lil' baby got a fatty
- 2023 March 18, Jo Ellison, “Have you got zaddy issues?”, in FT Weekend, page 21:
- As someone who can shoot on target, keep watch while you sleep and look smoking in a leather jacket or a sparkly, silver lurex sweater, [Pedro Pascal is] the poster boy for what the zaddy's all about.
References
[edit]- ^ Jones, Taylor (Apr 14, 2022). "The linguistics of Zaddy". LanguageJones via YouTube.