The English language gained a number of odd words in the 1960s. One of them is groovy. Er, that is, one of them is “groovy,” which may or may not be groovy. “Groovy” means cool, apt, pleasing, current, and generally desirable, and if you actually use the term today it evokes people wearing bell-bottom jeans, Volkswagens with brightly colored flowers painted on, and, of course, 1960s music.
Most people assume “groovy” comes from something to do with music — namely, that you’d place the the stylus in the groove of a vinyl record in order to play it on a phonograph. High tech back in those days.
However, most people, as happens distressingly often, would be wrong. “Groovy” didn’t originate in the 1960s; it was first recorded a century earlier, in 1853. At the time it simply meant something to do with any sort of groove. It moved into slang pretty quickly, where it was used in phrases like this:
“Gimme a plate of groovies, a slab of bread, and a bucket of ale, mate.”
Yup, it’s true, the original slang version of “groovy” meant “sardines.” But somehow, possibly thanks to sardine lovers at the time, “groovy” came to be used in connection with popular music. “In the groove” meant a musician performing well. And those 1960s musicians…oh, wait, did I say 1960s? Sorry, I meant 1920s, when “groovy” came into use in connection with jazz, which was the youth-oriented music of the time.
“Groovy” was in pretty common use by the time the 1960s came around. Not really part of mainstream usage, but it would have been easily recognized by many people. It came into wider usage in the 60s, of course, but the whole idea that “groovy” is a coinage of the hippie generation? Not very groovy at all.
