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''hucklebuck'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260915190735-00-⌔

hucklebuck - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

hucklebuck (plural hucklebucks)

  • A rhythmic dance from the time just prior to rock and roll.
    • 1948, Paul Williams, *The hucklebuck *, quoted in Talkin’ that talk (1986), page 168
    • ✤ It’s the dance you should know, when the lights are down low,/Grab your baby, then go, do the hucklebuck, do the hucklebuck,/If you don’t know how to do it, boy, you’re out of luck,/Push your partner out, then you hunch your back,/Have a little movement in your sacroiliac,/Wiggle like a snake, wobble like a duck,/That’s the way you do it when you do the hucklebuck.1
    • 1995, John W. Roberts, From Hucklebuck to Hip Hop: Social Dance in the African-American Community, →ISBN:
  • (New Orleans) A treat consisting of frozen Kool-Aid served in a dixie cup.
    • ✤ I am turtle soup, gator soup, tenderloin catfish, shrimp saute2
    • ✤ So, we made soul food, hucklebucks,
      corn pone, and bread pudding,
      gumbo, and greyas.      3
    • ✤ We waited for the Good Humor ice cream truck to get ice cream on a stick, huckle bucks, popsicles, or vanilla or chocolate ice cream in a small cup.4
  • ✤ Shrimp Samantha, fried shrimp, stuffed shrimp, peeled ice
  • ✤ shrimp, Crabmeat au gratin, berled crab, stuffed crab, Shrimp
  • ✤ Newberg, Shrimp etoufeé, Bananas Foster, Hubig’s Pies, Roman
  • ✤ Candy, pralines, and hucklebucks…
  • (slang, derogatory) A hillbilly or otherwise culturally backwards person.
    • ✤ […] I had a patrolman pull over a hot roller ‘bout two hours ago. One a’them boys in the stolen car opened up on my man, who’s in Atlanta General breathing through a tube and, according to the docs, ain’t never gonna wake up. […] If they find those hucklebucks, I’m gonna have a hollow-point street dance on my hands, but in my spare time, what can I do to serve my Federal government?”5
    • ✤ Who? I’m guessing a country singer of some reknown - I have heard the name before but I have no idea what he said or sang. Anyway, I will admit that when a celebrity with conservative beliefs states his opinion the response is usually more restained, but there’s still a response. And a lot of it is of the “he should stick to singing to hucklebucks/he should stick to blowing stuff up in movies” type responses.6
    • ✤ who cares if you did? does it say you’re not sophisticated if you voted for a hucklebuck? maybe you have money in petroleum or halliburton.7

Verb

hucklebuck (third-person singular simple present hucklebucks, present participle hucklebucking, simple past and past participle hucklebucked)

  • To dance the hucklebuck.
    • ✤ “We jumped﹡ and boped﹡8
    • ✤ The guys stood around the jukebox applejacking and hucklebucking to the music…9
    • ✤ […] Thanks to jazz my toes don’t knock no more. I cold-turkeyed to Bird doin ‘Now’s the Time,’ and hucklebucked out a the spell of heroin. […]10
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:hucklebuck.
  • ✤ and stamped around the floor,
  • ✤ we hucklebucked until my back is sore
  • ✤ but honey, wont you waltz with me once more﹡.
  • To move quickly, with quick movements and, often, going in circles.
    • ✤ Macon hucklebucked eleven flights rather than risk one elevator stare.11
    • ✤ It is only a game. I join the rhythmic clapping that always follows the fight song while the last of the players extracts himself from the stands and hucklebucks his way to join the milling, weight-shifting, pocketjammed team, […]12

Etymology

The dance is perhaps from huckle (“hip”) + buck.

Pronunciation

  • (US) IPA: /ˈhʌkl.bʌk/
  • Audio (Australia): 🔊

Printed 2026-09-15.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1949, Roy Alfred (lyrics), Andy Gibson (music): ↩

  2. 1988, Arthur Pfister, “My Name is New Orleans”, re-printed in Arthur Pfister, My Name is New Orleans: 40 Years of Poetry & Other Jazz, Margaret Media, Inc. (2009) →ISBN, page 5: ↩

  3. 2005, Mona Lisa Saloy, Red Beans and Ricely Yours: Poems, Truman State University Press, →ISBN, page 91: ↩

  4. 2011, Beverly Jacques Anderson, Cherished Memories: Snapshots of Life and Lessons from a 1950s New Orleans Creole Village, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 47: ↩

  5. 1996, Stephen J. Cannell, Final Victim, Avon Books, published 1997, →ISBN, page 107: ↩

  6. 2003 March 23, M1ahearn[username], “Re: NBC>>Ben Affleck is a MORON”, in rec.music.artists.springsteen ‎ (Usenet): ↩

  7. 2006 April 5, Jeff White, “Re: Darwin Answered His Own Evolution Questions”, in alt.religion.christian ‎ (Usenet): ↩

  8. 1948, Paul Williams, “The Hucklebuck”, quoted in Jean-Paul Levet, Talkin’ That Talk, Soul Bag (1986), →ISBN, page 168: ↩

  9. 1957, Herbert Simmons, Corner Boy, Houghton Mifflin, published 1957, page 58: ↩

  10. 1995, Wesley Brown, Tragic Magic, Ecco Press, →ISBN, page 37: ↩

  11. 2005, Adam Mansbach, Angry Black White Boy: The Miscegenation of Macon Detornay, Three Rivers Press, →ISBN, page 151: ↩

  12. 2011, Jay Nelson, Cold Creek, Xlibris, →ISBN, page 646: ↩

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