sweet home Alabama
noun · first attested 2010s
A 1974 rock anthem became shorthand for an accusation nobody spells out.
An online catchphrase posted about two people shown together to suggest they are related, as a joke about incest.
32.7000°N -86.7000°W · Q173
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Usage
- DerogatoryUsed to belittle the people or place it names.
- Attested
- 2010s
- 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
Alabama
- In English
sweet home Alabama
The words are the title of Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1974 song, itself a defense of the state, but the slang sense turns it around and runs on the stereotype of rural southern families marrying their own. Wiktionary labels this sense slang and humorous and dates its citations from 2019 to 2022: meme pages, an article describing it as an incest joke aimed at southern people, and a post about a dating app matching two siblings. The line is usually aimed at strangers in a photograph rather than at Alabamians directly, though the state supplies the whole premise.