Kansas City shuffle
noun · first attested 1926
The phrase was a jazz record title before anyone wrote it down as a con.
A confidence trick in which the victim knows he is being deceived and is steered by that very knowledge into the real trap.
39.0500°N -94.5833°W · Q41819
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- DisputedCompeting explanations remain live.
- Attested
- 1926
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Kansas City
- In English
Kansas City shuffle
Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra recorded Kansas City Shuffle in Chicago in December 1926, but nothing documents what that title referred to. The earliest clear record of the phrase used for a swindle is the 2006 film Lucky Number Slevin, where it is explained as they look right and you go left. No source records why the city's name attached to the trick.