See ebonify in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"etymology_text": "From Ebonics + -ify.",
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175
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"ref": "1997 January 10, Mark Johnson, “In Defense of Ebonics!”, in alt.politics.libertarian (Usenet):",
"text": "I can only imagine the hoots and laughter of the Aryan Nation crowd when they come across the first official textbook for 'Ebonics' 101; assuming you think all these ebonified English profs at the univ., with obv nothing better to do, would ever dare write such a thing. It's not a language, in other words.",
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"ref": "1999 July 31, The Rare South African Zonga Beetle, “hi”, in alt.nerd.obsessive (Usenet):",
"text": "Now, to \"ebonify\" it, so sean has a bit of a chance to understand...(I tell you now, I can ebonify better by myself, but the translator's such a nifty thing to have...plus, I didn't wanna bother with actually writing it all out, so..)",
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"ref": "2000 February 11, Met K., “S&M is Awsom”, in alt.rock-n-roll.metal.metallica (Usenet):",
"text": "wordyo! what up in the hood biznatch. And other ebonified words that really aren't a language it's just common misspellings made by retards.",
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24,
33
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"ref": "2001 February 15, Ji(DOUBLEG)Y, “WebTeeVee's HOT Like LiCkY”, in alt.tasteless.jokes (Usenet):",
"text": "[message header:] LiCkY Ebonifies it 4",
"type": "quotation"
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"ref": "2002 March 14, mellonhead, ““Biatch” … where the heck did that pronunciation come from?”, in https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biatch-where-the-heck-did-that-pronunciation-come-from/100466/6:",
"text": "As far as “Beeotch” goes, I believe this is from the same type of system (taking a normal word, ‘Ebonifying’ it for ghetto cool and then taking it to the streets to be repeated by white American suburban 15-year olds everywhere) - however it was popularized by one Mr. Snoop Dog.",
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"ref": "2004 April 22, Lars Eighner, “Ebonics from West Africa”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet):",
"text": "At the time of the Ebonics controversy we had a number of supposed ebonifying translators which did not produce BEV or Jive or Hiphop. They produced broken SE. But people who discuss Black English seriously in America, don't suppose or suggest that every person of African extraction everywhere in the world speaks Black English.",
"type": "quotation"
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495
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"ref": "2005 February 10, - Prof. Jonez坼, “Running a yellow light”, in misc.legal (Usenet):",
"text": "No one claimed they would block anything, that I am able to exit the intersection on the yellow, yet opt for whatever reason not to, and exit on the initial seconds of the Red, yet quite before the delayed GREEN of opposing cross traffic, and doubly quite before any of those opposing vehicles begin to react to the new green, much less are \"obstructed\", still puts one in compliance with the letter of the law. That is if English words still have any distinct meaning apart from urban ebonified guttural grunting.",
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103,
113
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"ref": "2012 September 23, Hellactic Translator Caphi, “Things of the Fortnight”, in https://shininggalaxy.wordpress.com/, people:",
"text": "Now, Cat is a good story. Due to, um, some factors (and despite several others), I started the idea of ebonifying him but couldn’t get it to snuff on my own. This was partly because “street” parody tastes best with tough, confident characters, but this guy is always complaining, groveling to the Phantoms, or gloating like a six year old. Also, it’s really hard to write a gangsta while keeping it PG.",
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"glosses": [
"To adopt or imitate an African-American speech style, mannerisms, or mindset, particularly one associated with an urban vernacular or informal expression."
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"(Internet slang, African-American Vernacular, transitive, uncommon) To adopt or imitate an African-American speech style, mannerisms, or mindset, particularly one associated with an urban vernacular or informal expression."
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"ref": "1997 January 10, Mark Johnson, “In Defense of Ebonics!”, in alt.politics.libertarian (Usenet):",
"text": "I can only imagine the hoots and laughter of the Aryan Nation crowd when they come across the first official textbook for 'Ebonics' 101; assuming you think all these ebonified English profs at the univ., with obv nothing better to do, would ever dare write such a thing. It's not a language, in other words.",
"type": "quotation"
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{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
9,
16
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[
91,
98
]
],
"ref": "1999 July 31, The Rare South African Zonga Beetle, “hi”, in alt.nerd.obsessive (Usenet):",
"text": "Now, to \"ebonify\" it, so sean has a bit of a chance to understand...(I tell you now, I can ebonify better by myself, but the translator's such a nifty thing to have...plus, I didn't wanna bother with actually writing it all out, so..)",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
48,
57
]
],
"ref": "2000 February 11, Met K., “S&M is Awsom”, in alt.rock-n-roll.metal.metallica (Usenet):",
"text": "wordyo! what up in the hood biznatch. And other ebonified words that really aren't a language it's just common misspellings made by retards.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
24,
33
]
],
"ref": "2001 February 15, Ji(DOUBLEG)Y, “WebTeeVee's HOT Like LiCkY”, in alt.tasteless.jokes (Usenet):",
"text": "[message header:] LiCkY Ebonifies it 4",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
97,
107
]
],
"ref": "2002 March 14, mellonhead, ““Biatch” … where the heck did that pronunciation come from?”, in https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biatch-where-the-heck-did-that-pronunciation-come-from/100466/6:",
"text": "As far as “Beeotch” goes, I believe this is from the same type of system (taking a normal word, ‘Ebonifying’ it for ghetto cool and then taking it to the streets to be repeated by white American suburban 15-year olds everywhere) - however it was popularized by one Mr. Snoop Dog.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
67,
77
]
],
"ref": "2004 April 22, Lars Eighner, “Ebonics from West Africa”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet):",
"text": "At the time of the Ebonics controversy we had a number of supposed ebonifying translators which did not produce BEV or Jive or Hiphop. They produced broken SE. But people who discuss Black English seriously in America, don't suppose or suggest that every person of African extraction everywhere in the world speaks Black English.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
486,
495
]
],
"ref": "2005 February 10, - Prof. Jonez坼, “Running a yellow light”, in misc.legal (Usenet):",
"text": "No one claimed they would block anything, that I am able to exit the intersection on the yellow, yet opt for whatever reason not to, and exit on the initial seconds of the Red, yet quite before the delayed GREEN of opposing cross traffic, and doubly quite before any of those opposing vehicles begin to react to the new green, much less are \"obstructed\", still puts one in compliance with the letter of the law. That is if English words still have any distinct meaning apart from urban ebonified guttural grunting.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
103,
113
]
],
"ref": "2012 September 23, Hellactic Translator Caphi, “Things of the Fortnight”, in https://shininggalaxy.wordpress.com/, people:",
"text": "Now, Cat is a good story. Due to, um, some factors (and despite several others), I started the idea of ebonifying him but couldn’t get it to snuff on my own. This was partly because “street” parody tastes best with tough, confident characters, but this guy is always complaining, groveling to the Phantoms, or gloating like a six year old. Also, it’s really hard to write a gangsta while keeping it PG.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To adopt or imitate an African-American speech style, mannerisms, or mindset, particularly one associated with an urban vernacular or informal expression."
],
"links": [
[
"Internet",
"Internet"
],
[
"adopt",
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],
[
"imitate",
"imitate"
],
[
"African-American",
"African-American"
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"qualifier": "African-American Vernacular",
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"(Internet slang, African-American Vernacular, transitive, uncommon) To adopt or imitate an African-American speech style, mannerisms, or mindset, particularly one associated with an urban vernacular or informal expression."
],
"tags": [
"Internet",
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"word": "ebonify"
}
Download raw JSONL data for ebonify meaning in English (5.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-07-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-07-06 using wiktextract (e62056b and e7887d5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.