As a noun, the hip is the joint where the top of your leg meets your body. As an adjective (informal), hip means fashionable, cool, or up-to-date.
The body-part sense comes from Old English “hype” or “hip,” related to Germanic words for the same joint. The slang sense “hip” meaning “in the know” appeared in American English in the early 1900s, possibly from African American vernacular, though its exact origin is debated.
One word lives a double life: your hip helps you walk, while being “hip” helps you socially walk into the right circles. The slang version shows how quickly language can flip—what was “hip” in one decade can sound painfully uncool in the next. Your grandparents might once have been the hippest people in town.
‘Hip’ has been used both literally (body part) and figuratively (fashionable), and appearance-focused talk about hips has often targeted women, tied to beauty and fertility norms. In some contexts, comments about hips have been used to police women’s bodies and clothing.
Avoid unsolicited comments about anyone’s hips or body shape; use neutral, clinical language in medical contexts and respect self-descriptions in fashion or dance.
["pelvis area","fashionable","trendy","stylish"]
In discussions of body image, recognize how women and gender-diverse people have reclaimed body-positive language around hips and other features traditionally judged by narrow standards.
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