jazz

• POS: Noun, Verb (intransitive)

CIDE DICTIONARY

jazz, n. 

•  A type of music that originated in New Orleans around 1900 and developed through increasingly complex styles, but generally featuring intricate rhythms, improvisation, prominent solo segments, and great freedom in harmonic idiom played frequently in a polyphonic style, on various instruments including horn, saxophone, piano and percussion, but rarely stringed instruments.  [WordNet 1.5]
•  empty or insincere or exaggerated talk; as, don't give me any of that jazz.  [WordNet 1.5]
•  A style of dance music popular in the 1920s; similar to New Orleans jazz but played by large bands.  [WordNet 1.5]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

jazz, n. & v.
--n.
1 music of US Negro origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usu. a regular or forceful rhythm.
2 sl. pretentious talk or behaviour, nonsensical stuff (all that jazz).
--v.intr. play or dance to jazz.

Idiom

jazz up brighten or enliven.

Derivative

jazzer n.

Etymology

20th c.: orig. uncert.

THESAURUS

jazz

acid rock, avant-garde jazz, ballroom music, baloney, bebop, boogie-woogie, bop, bull, bushwa, concert, country rock, crap, dance music, dances, dramatico-musical, flimflam, folk rock, guff, hard rock, hot, hot jazz, instrumental, jazzed up, jazzy, jive, mainstream jazz, malarkey, moonshine, musical suite, orchestral, poppycock, rag, ragtime, ragtimey, rhythm-and-blues, rock, rock-and-roll, suite, suite of dances, swing, swingy, symphonic, syncopated, syncopated music, syncopation, the new music