{"id":7360,"date":"2026-05-23T02:16:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T02:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7360"},"modified":"2026-05-23T02:19:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T02:19:31","slug":"word-of-the-day-copacetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2026\/05\/23\/word-of-the-day-copacetic\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Copacetic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>), is copacetic<\/em>. Pronounced \/ \u02ccko\u028a p\u0259\u02c8s\u025bt \u026ak \/, with the primary stress on the third syllable, this adjective means \u201cfine; completely satisfactory\u201d and is listed as slang (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/copacetic<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Did You Know section, Merriam-Webster says, \u201cIf you\u2019re living the life of Riley, strolling along easy street, or wallowing in hog heaven, your circumstances may be described as copacetic. A word of obscure origin, copacetic has for over a century satisfied those who\u2019ve had a hankering to describe that which is hunky-dory or otherwise completely satisfactory. (If “of obscure origin” leaves you feeling less than copacetic, the note here will undoubtedly remedy that.) Life isn\u2019t always beer and skittles, but when you do find yourself walking that primrose path, just remember: it\u2019s all copacetic\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/copacetic<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Etymonline.com identifies the first record of the word in \u201c1919, but it may have origins in 19c. U.S. Southern Black speech. Origin unknown; suspects include Latin, Yiddish (Hebrew kol b’seder<\/em>), Italian, Louisiana French (coupe-s\u00e9tique<\/em>), and Native American. Among the linguists, none of these is considered especially convincing. The popularization, and sometimes the invention, of the word often is attributed to U.S. entertainer Bill \u2018Bojangles\u2019 Robinson (1878-1949)\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=copacetic<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBill Robinson (born May 25, 1878, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.\u2014died November 25, 1949, New York, New York) was an American dancer of Broadway and Hollywood, best known for his dancing roles with Shirley Temple in films of the 1930s.
\u201cRobinson\u2019s parents having died when he was a child, he was raised by a grandmother and received little formal schooling. He began dancing for pennies at the age of eight, when he had also begun to work as a stableboy. He eventually made a swing of a vaudeville circuit and in 1908 entered a business association with Marty Forkins, actors\u2019 agent, who helped him to fame.
\u201cRobinson went on to become a star of black musical comedies, later a top vaudeville star, and finally a star of motion pictures, appearing in 14 films, notably The Little Colonel (1935), In Old Kentucky (1935), The Littlest Rebel (1935), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), and Just Around the Corner (1938). He also appeared in the wartime all-black musical film Stormy Weather (1943)\u201d (https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Bill-Robinson<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now if you\u2019re like me, and you hear the name \u201cBojangles,\u201d you automatically think of the song by Jerry Jeff Walker. Or perhaps, if you\u2019re younger than I am, you think automatically of the fast-food chain, but that doesn\u2019t really matter for the blog. But if you know anything about Jerry Jeff Walker, you know that he couldn\u2019t possibly have written \u201cMr. Bojangles\u201d about Bill Robinson. Well, maybe you wouldn\u2019t know that if you don\u2019t know the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWalker said he was inspired to write the song after an encounter with a street performer in a New Orleans jail. While in jail for public intoxication in 1965, he met a homeless man who called himself \u2018Mr. Bojangles\u2019 to conceal his true identity from the police. Mr. Bojangles had been arrested as part of a police sweep of indigent people that was carried out following a high-profile murder. The two men and others in the cell chatted about all manner of things, but when Mr. Bojangles told a story about his performing dog who was killed by a car, the mood in the room turned heavy. Someone else in the cell asked for something to lighten the mood, and Mr. Bojangles obliged with a tap dance. The homeless \u2018Mr. Bojangles\u2019, who was white, had taken his pseudonym from Bill \u2018Bojangles\u2019 Robinson (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mr._Bojangles_(song)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song was made popular by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1969. Other performers who covered the song include Bob Dylan, Harry Belafonte, Neil Diamond, John Denver, and Sammy Davis, Jr. But my favorite version of the song, one which tells the story from a slightly different perspective, is by Dave Bromberg (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=muG8kDYbZ5Q<\/a>). Take a listen. It\u2019s copacetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is from the movie \u201cThe Little Colonel<\/em> [with]Bill (\u2018Bojangles\u2019) Robinson and Shirley Temple egging each other on in \u2026 (1935)\u201d (https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Bill-Robinson<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary), is copacetic. Pronounced \/ \u02ccko\u028a p\u0259\u02c8s\u025bt \u026ak \/, with the primary stress on the third syllable, this adjective means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[998,238,395,284,999],"class_list":["post-7360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-copacetic","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","tag-mr-bojangles","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7362,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360\/revisions\/7362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}