Groovy means fashionable and exciting, in nineteen-sixties slang. That's groovy, a groovy jacket, feeling groovy.
It is so firmly dated that using it now is either a joke or a costume, which is what happens to slang tied to one decade. It came from jazz — in the groove meant playing well — and the groove was the one on a record.
1adjectivegroovyFashionable and exciting, in sixties slang.
“Hey, that's a groovy shirt, man! Where did you get it?”
groovy is a term of approval.
From the phrase in the groove, jazz slang for playing well, referring to the groove of a phonograph record.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰrebʰ- — to dig, scrape, bury
Proto-Germanic
*grōbō — groove, furrow
Proto-West Germanic
*grōbu
Middle Dutch
groeve — furrow, ditch
Old Norse
gróf — pit
Middle English
grov
English
groove
English, today
groovy
Built from
From groove + -y. groove comes from Middle English grov, grove, groof, grofe (“cave; pit; mining shaft”), probably from Old Norse gróf (“pit”) or from Middle Dutch groeve (“furrow, ditch”), both from Proto-West Germanic grōbu, from Proto-Germanic grōbō (“groove, furrow”), from Proto-Indo-European gʰrebʰ- (“to dig, scrape, bury”). Cognate with cim gruuba (“gorge, ravine”), Dutch groef, groeve (“groove; pit, grave”), German Grube (“ditch, pit”), lb Grouf (“pit, mine”), mhn gruab (“mine”), Icelandic gróf (“pit, hollow”), Gothic 𐌲𐍂𐍉𐌱𐌰 (“foxhole”), Serbo-Croatian grèbati (“scratch, dig”). Related to Old English grafan (“to dig”). More at grave.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA