grillz
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Senses: examples: text: Now, with Jiggaman kinda, sorta retired and Nas beyond his glory days, Southern cats with gold grillz are running rap.
ref: 2005, Vibe, page 194:
text: This black-brown-beige sea shimmered with sequined baseball caps, Cartier glasses, leather of every color, gloss-lacquered lips, and every style of denim, designer labels, diamond-studded gold grillz and jewelry, and hairstyles that shot beautiful sprays of braids and dreads and ’fros up toward the ornate gold-painted balconies and chandeliered ceiling.
ref: 2006, White Chocolate, Sex in the Hood 2, Deer Park, N.Y.: Urban Books, →ISBN, page 260:
text: Most of the young cats had dreads with the ends dipped in red dye, gold grillz, and tall white tees that reached their knees.
ref: 2006, Racy Lee, Stripped, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, Inc., →ISBN, page 169:
text: GOLD GRILLZ CLASS LEARN TO MAKE GOLD TEETH IN ONLY 3 DAYS!
ref: 2006, XXL, numbers 86–87, page 171:
text: No longer are iced-out grillz just for rappers. They are now going mainstream, with a variety of people from all walks of life flossin’ gold grillz - including K-State students. […] “Now it is just for show. Coming up in the South as a young kid, the older guys had gold grillz, big cars and big rims. That’s all you see.” […] “It’s just a trend. It started in the South, but now people in St. Louis, New York and California have grillz,” Willis said. People get grillz for numerous reasons – whether it be to show what hood they are from, to just wanting to stick out from the crowd. […] Grillz are removable so anyone could be a professional by day and crunk by night.
ref: 2006 January 27, Sheila Ellis, “Get ur’ shine on”, in Kansas State Collegian, volume 110, number 89, page 7:
text: As players advance, dollars are earned that can be spent in a virtual store stocked with all the accoutrements and rewards of success: the latest styles from Jordan sneakers, Avirex jackets, Ecko shirts, Sean John jeans and, of course, gold grillz for the teeth.
ref: 2007 February 12, David Lipke, “Big Game Hunters”, in DNR, volume 37, number 7, New York, N.Y.: Fairchild Fashion Group, →ISSN, page 94, column 2:
text: A star in the United Kingdom, Deeley wasn’t known in the U.S. when she joined SYTYCD, but she quickly won over viewers with her sense of humor (she once popped a dancer’s gold grillz into her mouth and smiled for the camera), her warmth (she isn’t above comforting a weeping contestant with an embrace), her wardrobe (she serves as her own stylist, donning everything from Dior to flea-market finds) and her charming accent – just ask her to say judges.
ref: 2009, emmy, volume 31, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, page 16:
text: Seventy miles an hour passing Broadway lights… Head tight…we wear our sunglasses at night… My gold grillz shine so bright… Got no problems with the ladies…
ref: 2009, Lawren Greene, “Chillin’ in the Cut”, in Mortally Immortal, →ISBN, page 295:
text: If you want to keep a full set of healthy teeth on which to mount a set of solid-gold grillz, focus on the gums, floss, give your teeth a rest, and try not to contemplate suicide when your rancid postmeal breath drives away everyone you ever loved.
ref: 2013, Cracked.com, “Health and Anatomy”, in The De-Textbook: The Stuff You Didn’t Know About the Stuff You Thought You Knew, New York, N.Y.: Plume, →ISBN, page 11:
text: I went inside the case on my dresser and put in my 14k gold grillz top and bottom and ran my hands over my hair.
ref: 2015, Diamond Johnson, 305 Lovin’, Leo Sullivan Presents, →ISBN, pages 168–169:
text: Choose an accessory that you can call your signature piece and which will make you stand out. My hat is the accessory that has garnered a great deal of attention through the years. Think Ariana Grande’s cat ears or Beyoncé’s bling. It could also be a hairstyle, certain jewellery items – think Kanye West’s gold grillz on his teeth or Iggy Azalea’s ponytail.
ref: 2015, Jen Su, From Z to A-Lister: How to Build Your Personal Brand, Johannesburg: Tracey McDonald Publishers, →ISBN:
text: Sneering through gold grillz, inked to the neck in bad tattoos and representing my area code, Franco leads the spring breakers through a stylized, mtv version of thug life, replete with drugs, guns, Benjamins and booty call.
ref: 2015, Thomas Hallock, “City Creeks: Lessons in Sustainable Environmental Discourse from a Florida Boom Town”, in Mark Luccarelli, Sigurd Bergmann, editors, Spaces in-between: Cultural and Political Perspectives on Environmental Discourse, Leiden; Boston, Mass.: Brill-Rodopi, →ISBN, part 1 (Lived Spaces and Political Contexts), page 89:
text: Ninja is rail thin, sporting gold grillz on his teeth, and is covered in crude (in style and content) rou tjappies (homemade tattoos), reminiscent of those worn by inmates and coloured gangs in Cape Town.
ref: 2016, Megan Lewis, “Vuilgeboosted Gangstas and Romanties Afrikaner Rappers: The Zef Whiteness of Die Antwoord and Jack Parow”, in Performing Whitely in the Postcolony: Afrikaners in South African Theatrical and Public Life (Studies in Theatre History and Culture), Iowa City, Ia.: University of Iowa Press, →ISBN, page 164:
text: They imagine where we come from and see Confederate flags and rednecks and dusty dudes with gold grillz rapping about bitches and hos.
ref: 2020, Deesha Philyaw, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Pushkin Press, published 2022, →ISBN:
text: Most with facial tattoos and grillz make Dawn shake her head profusely before she lands on a cute, young, fresh face with bone-straight hair and cheekbones from the ancestral gods. […] He smiles, revealing gold grillz on his bottom teeth.
ref: 2022, Ashley M. Coleman, Good Morning, Love, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, →ISBN:
text: Then my son showed me the animated figure he had chosen to represent himself. A black man in a neon-pink tracksuit with a giant gold dollar sign roped over his chest, a neck tattoo, chin-length dreadlocks, and a smile covered in what my son called his solid-gold grillz.
ref: 2022, Cindy House, “Rated M for Mature”, in Mother Noise, New York, N.Y.: Marysue Rucci Books, Simon & Schuster, Inc., →ISBN, page 181:
text: Tobias gave a winning smile. His gold grillz glinted.
ref: 2022, Hannah Morrissey, “Hudson” (chapter 18), in The Widowmaker, New York, N.Y.: Minotaur Books, St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN:
glosses: plural of grill (“jewelry worn on the front teeth”)