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Great Gatsby Glossary: Jazz Age Words and References

An A–Z guide to the slang, people, places and period references you will meet in The Great Gatsby. Chapter numbers show where a term appears, so you can jump straight to it in the full text.

A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P R S T V W

A

Argonne Forest
A region in northeastern France and the site of a major American offensive in the autumn of 1918, near the end of the First World War. Gatsby claims to have led his machine-gun battalion there (Chapter 4).
Art Deco
The geometric, glamorous design style of the 1920s and 1930s, named after a 1925 Paris exhibition. See Art Deco fashion.
Astoria
A neighbourhood of Queens, New York, on the route from the Eggs to Manhattan (Chapter 7).

B

Beale Street Blues
A 1917 blues song by W. C. Handy, named after a street in Memphis. The saxophones play it during Daisy’s youth in Louisville (Chapter 8).
Belasco
David Belasco, a Broadway producer famous for extremely realistic stage sets. Owl Eyes calls Gatsby “a regular Belasco” because his library books are real (Chapter 3).
Blackwell’s Island
An island in New York’s East River, now called Roosevelt Island, crossed by the Queensboro Bridge (Chapter 4).
Bob
A short women’s haircut, the signature look of the 1920s. Gatsby’s guests wear their “hair bobbed in strange new ways” (Chapter 3).
Bond business
Selling and trading bonds, a kind of investment. Nick comes East to learn it (Chapter 1).
Bootlegger
Someone who made, smuggled or sold alcohol illegally during Prohibition. Rumours suggest Gatsby is one, and Tom accuses him of it.

C

Coney Island
A seaside amusement district in Brooklyn, famous for its rides and bright lights. Nick compares Gatsby’s lit-up house to it (Chapter 5).
Coupé
A closed two-door car. A new coupé ends up in a ditch after Gatsby’s party (Chapter 3), and Tom drives a blue one.
Cuff buttons
Cufflinks. Wolfshiem proudly shows off his, made from human molars (Chapter 4).

D

Drugstore
A pharmacy, often with a soda fountain. Tom claims Gatsby and Wolfshiem sold grain alcohol over the counter in side-street drugstores (Chapter 7).

E

East Egg
The fictional, fashionable Long Island village of old money, where the Buchanans live.

F

Flapper
A young woman of the 1920s who wore short skirts and bobbed hair, danced to jazz and defied older social rules. The word itself does not appear in the novel, but the type is everywhere at Gatsby’s parties.
Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies, a famous Broadway revue. A dancing girl at Gatsby’s party is rumoured to be “Gilda Gray’s understudy from the Follies” (Chapter 3).

G

Gin rickey
A drink of gin, lime juice and soda water. Tom serves four on the hottest day of the summer (Chapter 7). See our cocktail recipes.
Grain alcohol
Pure alcohol distilled from grain, which pharmacies could legally sell for medical uses during Prohibition, opening a loophole for bootleggers.

H

Highball
A simple drink of whisky or another spirit mixed with soda water or ginger ale (Chapter 4).
Hopalong Cassidy
A cowboy hero of popular Western novels. Gatsby wrote his boyhood self-improvement schedule in the back of a copy (Chapter 9).
Hydroplane
A seaplane, able to take off from and land on water. Gatsby has one, and offers to take Nick up in it (Chapter 3).

J

Jazz Age
The 1920s, a name popularised by Fitzgerald himself, especially through his collection Tales of the Jazz Age (1922).

K

Kaiser Wilhelm
Wilhelm II, the German emperor during the First World War. One rumour claims Gatsby is his nephew or cousin (Chapter 2).
Kant
Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, who was said to have stared at a church steeple while thinking. Nick compares himself to him while watching Gatsby’s house (Chapter 5).

L

Louisville
A city in Kentucky, Daisy’s hometown, where she met Gatsby in 1917.

M

Maecenas
A wealthy patron of the arts in ancient Rome. Nick’s finance books promise secrets “that only Midas and Morgan and Mæcenas knew” (Chapter 1).
Metropole
A New York hotel where Wolfshiem remembers the killing of his friend Rosy Rosenthal (Chapter 4).
Midas
The mythical king who turned everything he touched into gold.
Montenegro
A small Balkan kingdom. Gatsby shows Nick a medal he says it awarded him (Chapter 4).
Morgan
J. P. Morgan, the famous American banker and financier.

N

New Haven
The Connecticut city that is home to Yale University. Nick graduated “from New Haven” in 1915 (Chapter 1).

O

Old sport
Gatsby’s favourite form of address, a mannered, British-sounding phrase he uses more than forty times in the novel. Tom mocks it.
Oxford
The English university. Gatsby claims to be “an Oxford man,” and Wolfshiem calls it “Oggsford” (Chapter 4).

P

Plaza Hotel
A grand hotel on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, scene of the confrontation in Chapter 7.
Prohibition
The national ban on making, transporting and selling alcohol in the United States, from 1920 to 1933.

R

Roadster
An open two-seater car. Young Daisy had “a little white roadster” in Louisville (Chapter 4).
Rotogravure
A printing process used for photo sections in Sunday newspapers. Nick recognises Jordan from “many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life” (Chapter 1).

S

Sauterne
A sweet French white wine (usually spelled Sauternes). Daisy holds a bottle the night before her wedding (Chapter 4).
“The Sheik of Araby”
A hit song of 1921, inspired by the Rudolph Valentino film The Sheik. Children sing it in Central Park (Chapter 4).
Simon Called Peter
A popular, rather racy 1921 novel by Robert Keable, found in Myrtle’s apartment (Chapter 2).
The Sound
Long Island Sound, the body of water between Long Island and Connecticut on which the Eggs sit.

T

Town Tattle
A fictional gossip magazine that Myrtle buys at the station (Chapter 2).
Trimalchio
A freed slave who throws an extravagant banquet in the ancient Roman satire the Satyricon. Nick says Gatsby’s “career as Trimalchio was over” when the parties stop (Chapter 7).
Trinity Quad
A courtyard at Trinity College, Oxford, where Gatsby’s photograph was supposedly taken (Chapter 4).

V

Valley of ashes
The bleak industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York, home of the Wilsons.

W

West Egg
The fictional Long Island village of new money, where Gatsby and Nick live.
World’s Series
The baseball championship, now called the World Series. Wolfshiem is said to have fixed the 1919 Series, a reference to the real “Black Sox” scandal (Chapter 4).

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