1934 C. Calloway et al. (title of song) Jitter bug.

1934 C. Calloway et al. in Song Hits Mag. (1939) Nov. 19 They're four little jitter bugs. He has the jitters ev'ry morn, That's why jitter sauce was born.

1939 Times 30 Jan. 13/5 It [sc. the Government] is the only body capable of giving the information which would largely dispel the apprehensions of the ‘Jitter-bugs’, who, though perhaps few in number, are vocal and often influential.

1941 N. Marsh Death & Dancing Footman (1942) iv. 65 One man will keep his head in a crisis where another will go jitter-bug.

1941 N. Marsh Death & Dancing Footman (1942) iv. 76 Nick had a jitter-bug and wanted to make off.

1944 J. H. Fullarton Troop Target iii. 29 Now, when ‘bomb-happiness’ and the ‘jitterbugs’ threatened to touch the troop with palsied fingers.

1966 E. H. Jones Margery Fry xiv. 193 Sir Samuel Hoare denounced the ‘jitterbugs’ who feared war... Five days after..German troops moved unresisted into Czechoslovakia.

1937 Down Beat Feb. 9/4 (heading) ‘Jives of the jitter~bugs.’ High and low-down on the swing men.

1938 Manch. Guardian Weekly 2 Sept. 188/3 A ‘jitterbug’ is a person keen on swing.

1939 Times 27 Jan. 7/5 I am told that in the U.S.A. there is a class of people who sit listening in hysterical excitement to what is called ‘hot-music’ and waiting for the final crash. Americans in their forcible language call them the ‘Jitter-bugs’. There are many people in Europe to-day who seem to be behaving in much the same way.

1942 Dancing Times May 411/2 Equally pleasing to Jitterbugs and some rhythm dancers will be ‘Russian Salad’.

1951 E. Paul Springtime in Paris (U.K. ed.) xii. 218 On the corner, the Nest of Vipers nightly harboured jitterbugs and Lindy hoppers whose antics shamed the praying mantis.

1939 R. Chandler in Sat. Evening Post 14 Oct. 11/1 This jitterbug music gives me the backdrop of a beer flat. I like something with roses in it.

1943 Dancing Times Sept. 560/1 The wildest Jitterbug yet is danced by Dorothy Lamour.

1969 N. Cohn Pop from Beginning ix. 81 With old favourites like the jitterbug and the jive..the girls spun like tops and everyone got fast flashes of knicker.

1971 Daily Tel. 1 Nov. 9/1 To pop music..she performed movements reminiscent of the jitterbug of a generation ago.

1939 Amer. Mag. Sept. 160 Susy Shag..begins thinking seriously of marrying the guy she's been jitterbugging with.

1949 N. Marsh Swing, Brother, Swing v. 77 D'you jitter-bug?

1951 J. D. Salinger Catcher in Rye x. 80 The band was starting a fast one. She started jitterbugging with me.

1955 C. Fox in Jazzbook 1955 4 They jitter~bugged down the aisles to the exhilarating music, horrifying their parents and bringing worried frowns to the faces of the jazz purists of those days.

1972 Jazz & Blues Nov. 5/1 They jitterbugged to ‘One O'Clock Jump’ and stomped their feet to ‘Maple Leaf Rag’.

1973 Washington Post 5 Apr. B.2 The happiest part..is a salute to the big bands of the '40s, with Miss Adams in a snood and Candoli jitterbugging in a zoot suit.

1938 San Francisco Call-Bull. 8 Dec. 17/1 ‘Jitter~bugging is just a phase,’ he said... ‘It isn't music. This town wants real music and nothing else will do.’

1939 San Francisco Examiner 17 Sept. 2/2 I love ballroom dancing and I usually do just that, but at times I find it a job to express my joy of living by doing a little jitter~bugging.

1940 R. Graves & A. Hodge Long Week-end xxii. 390 Jitterbugging had then [1939] just come over from the United States..an ecstatic mode of dancing to fast swing music in which the two partners could perform absolutely any..acrobatic feat they liked.

1942 A. P. Jephcott Girls growing Up iii. 63 The slick, apparently assured, smoking, jitterbugging town girl of sixteen still regards friendliness as the all-important feature of any group with which she intends to associate.

1952 M. McCarthy Groves of Academe (1953) ii. 20 He did not dance, but..vigorously nodded with approval when a jitter~bugging pair desisted.

1973 G. Durrell Beasts in my Belfry v. 105 The only folk dances I have ever witnessed were danced by elderly, aesthetic ladies with fringes and strings of beads and they were nothing like the gnus' wild jitterbugging.