noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A nervous or jittery person. colloquial
2. 2
   a jerky American dance that was popular in the 1940s wordnet
3. 3
   A jazz musician or aficionado.
4. 4
   An uptempo jazz or swing dance which embellishes on the two-step pattern and frequently incorporates acrobatic style swing steps.
5. 5
   Synonym of diddley bow (“type of stringed instrument”).

Verb

1. 1
   To dance the jitterbug.
2. 2
   do the jitterbug wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

bundle of nervesdiddley bowjazz bandjazz bandjazzbojazzbo

Antonyms

All antonyms

ballet

Etymology

From jitter + bug, after the 1934 Cab Calloway song “Jitter Bug”.

Related phrases

crazy feetfifties danceforties danceold danceold peopletwo step

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.