dixie

Other Definitions
dixie (dict)

For other uses: see Dixie (disambiguation).

Dixie is a nickname of uncertain origin for the Southern region of the United States. The "Heart of Dixie" is a nickname for Alabama, or more specifically, the original capital of the Confederate States of America (and current capital of Alabama), Montgomery.

Origin of Dixie

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origins of the nickname remain obscure. According to A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951), by Mitford M. Mathews, three theories most commonly attempt to explain the term:

The word preserves the name of a kind slaveowner on Manhattan Island, a Mr. Dixy. His rule was so kindly that "Dixy's Land" became famed far and wide as an Elysium abounding in material comforts.
Ten-dollar notes issued by the Citizens Bank of Louisiana before the Civil War bore the French dix, ten, on the reverse side and were consequently known as "dixes" or "dixies". Hence, Louisiana and eventually the South in general came to be known as the land of "dixies" or "dixies land".
"Dixie" derives somehow from Jeremiah Dixon of the Mason-Dixon line defining the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania (the northern boundary of Dixie).

The Mason-Dixon theory is the most popularly known, but few lexicographers give it much weight.

Jazz

An early style of jazz music is often known as Dixieland.

NATO phonetic alphabet

In airports, "Dixie" is also sometimes used in the NATO phonetic alphabet in place of "Delta" to avoid confusion with Delta Air Lines.

"Dixie's Land"

An Ohio minstrel show composer, Daniel Decatur Emmett, wrote the song called "Dixie's Land", first published by Phillip Werlein in New Orleans in 1859. The tune popularly became known simply as "Dixie". Many people identify the lyrics of the song with the iconography and ideology of the Old South. Some have considered it an unofficial "national anthem" of the South. It is often regarded as the Southern counterpart to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". The chorus and first verse are still well-known in much of the U.S. South. One very seldom hears the additional verses.

Lyrics:

I wish I was in the land of cotton,

Old times there are not forgotten;