Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to dance, to party, to play music, to frequent dance-halls etc; thus jooking/jugging n.

1934		N. Cunard Negro in Hurston Folkore, Memoirs & Others Writings (1995) 833: Jooking — playing piano or guitar as it is done in Jook-houses (houses of ill fame) [Ibid.] 841: The singing and playing in the true Negro style is called ‘jooking’.
1939		S. Kennedy ‘Pedro and Estrella’ in the Folklore Project, Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1940 🌐 I suggest a cafe of some sort — anywhere we can dance and buy drinks. ‘You don’t mean a jook joint, do you?’ Estrella asks. ‘Jooking is for unmarried men.’ ‘That’s what you think,’ replies Pedro, ‘plenty married men go jooking.’ ‘I know they do, but that’s not so good.’ ‘You don’t know what jooking means. Jooking means having a good time anywhere, drinking and dancing. We go somewhere nice.’.
1942		Z.N. Hurston Dust Tracks On a Road (1995) 841: The singing and playing in the true Negro style is called ‘jooking’.
1954		Hepster’s Dict. 6: Jugging – Dancing.
1978		R. De Christoforo Grease 144: Me and Danny were jukin’ around the room in our shorts, getting loose.
1980		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 4: jukin’ – dance.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 14: The joints were juking open throttle now.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 jukin Definition: to dance at a very high speed and move your feet really fast Example: Dem dudes from the east-side be jukin’ good!
2006		R. Antoni Carnival 156: Gyrating and jostling and jooking-up.

2. to have a good time.

1975

G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 62: juke vi 1: Dance 2: Have a good time, especially at a party.

3. to boost, to improve.

2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 268: Champ B. bopped through. Champ B. juked morale. Champ B. dumped some hijacked Pall Malls.
2004		Simon & Burns ‘Mission Accomplished’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 12 [TV script] We were under pressure to keep the crime down, to juke the stats district by district.
2015		D. Simon on themarshallproject.org 29 Apr. 🌐 But these guys weren't satisfied with just juking their own stats.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 134: ‘Maybe shit has some ops going to juke Pete’s shot at the job’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 374: [[The] powdered Demerol and bourbon cocktail [...] juked my brain cells.