DJ

n.
A disc jockey.


v., DJ'ed, DJ'·ing, DJ's.

v.tr.
To act as a disc jockey at (a social gathering or radio station).

v.intr.
To act as a disc jockey.

Origin: 1950

Perhaps it was a headline writer for the show-business journal Variety who thought up the term disc jockey to signify "someone who plays discs (phonograph records) for an audience, on the radio or at a social gathering." The issue of August 6, 1941, has an article on New York City record jockeys, compressing record to disc for the headline. The August 13 issue picks up disc throughout: "Gilbert is a disc-jockey who sings with his records," and "Art Green disc-jockeys from Manhattan Beach" (in California).

After disc jockey, numerous other humorous jockeys were coined: bus jockey (driver), typewriter jockey (typist), and slide-rule jockey (airplane navigator), for example. But it was the abbreviation DJ, also appearing as d.j. and deejay, that marked the growing importance of the disk jockey and of recorded popular music in the 1950s. The DJ had become an arbiter of popular taste.

Discotheques, or discos, introduced in the 1950s and 1960s, allowed reinterpretation of DJ as "disco jockey." In the 1970s, the term talk jockey was invented, meaning "host of a radio talk show," later shortened to the rhyming talk jock and instigating the coinage of shock jock for the host of a "shock" talk show of the 1990s. In the early 1980s, the new technology of music videos inspired the term video jockey, shortened to VJ.

Amid these spinoffs, the original DJ lives vigorously on. "The d.j. can still hope to help people transform their daily selves through music," solemnly wrote a New York nightclub DJ in a 1996 New Yorker article.

---

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a person who announces and plays popular recorded music
  Synonyms: disk jockey, disc jockey

---

Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - discjockey, pladevender

2.
abbr. - Dinner Jacket, smoking

Nederlands (Dutch)
deejay, disk jockey

Français (French)
1.
n. - disk-jockey, animateur

2.
abbr. - (abrév = dinner jacket) smok/smoking

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Disk jockey

2.
abbr. - Dinnerjacket

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - ντισκ τζόκεϊ
abbr. - ντισκ τζόκεϊ

Italiano (Italian)
disc jockey

Português (Portuguese)
n. - locutor (m) de programa de gravações

Русский (Russian)
диск-жокей

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - disc jockey, pinchadiscos

2.
abbr. - smoking

Svenska (Swedish)
n., - abbr.

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
音乐节目广播员, 地方初审法院法官

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
abbr. - 音樂節目廣播員, 地方初審法院法官

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - disk jacket(디스크 자키)

2.
abbr. - dinner jacket(남자용의 약식 야외복)

日本語 (Japanese)
abbr. - ディスクジョッキー, タキシード

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) (اختصار) مختصر كلمه Disc Jockey , مذيع الأغنيات عادة يقوم بالتعليق عنها أيضا‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תקליטן - ממונה על השמעת תקליטים‬
abbr. - ‮חליפה לסעודה חגיגית‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.

To select your translation preferences click here.

dj	Dj Speakers
dj how to	Dj Equipment