hep
/hɛp/
hep noun: hepatitis. Also the abbreviation of high-energy physics.
Noun (1)
hep (uncountable)
Noun (2)
hep (plural heps)
Adjective
hep (comparative more hep, superlative most hep)
- Aware, up-to-date.
- I was pleased, as I put him hep on the Wilbert-Phyllis situation and revealed the part he was expected to play in it, to note that he showed no signs of being about to issue the presidential veto.1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter IX
- Cool, hip, sophisticated.
- And I was struck to notice that though the band was only Jumble imitation of our style, it was quite a hep combination, with some feel of the beat, not like those dreadful records of the English bands I'd heard back home which never can play slow, and never can play easy to the limbs.1964 [1957], Colin MacInnes, City of Spades, London: Penguin Books, page 59
Verb
hep (third-person singular simple present heps, present participle hepping, simple past and past participle hepped)
- To make aware of.
- I hepped him to the situation.
Interjection
- A rallying cry in attacks on the Jewish people.
- Let us hope that the modern “Hep-Hep” cry of Antisemitism of to-day will be accompanied by a similar level of Judaism.1893, Emanuel Schreiber, Historians of Judaism in the Nineteenth Century, page 13
Also used as
hep is also the abbreviation of high-energy physics.
hep is also the alternative form of hup.
Forms of hep
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | heps |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more hep |
| superlative | most hep |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | heps |
| present participle | hepping |
| past participle | hepped |
| past | hepped |
Origin of hep
Shortening.
Alteration of hip.
US slang of unknown or disputed origin, first recorded 1903. Robert Gold suggested that it is a variant of hip, from white jazz fans’ mishearing African American musicians. Jonathon Green suggests a connection to a 19th century interjection used to drive horses; compare gee up.
Words formed from hep
Phrases with hep
Words that rhyme with hep
Questions about hep
- What does hep mean?
- Hep means hepatitis.
- What part of speech is hep?
- Hep can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or an interjection.
- How do you pronounce hep?
- Hep is pronounced /hɛp/.
- What is the plural of hep?
- The plural of hep is heps.
Words near hep in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hep (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hep.wav.
Cite this entry: “hep.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hep. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
