play the dozens

play the dozens

To engage in an informal contest in which one trades insults with someone about each other and each other's family members, especially their mothers, typically in front of a group. The insults are not meant to be taken seriously. Exclusive to African-American communities. You want to play the dozens, son? We'll keep it light, unlike yo' mama, who's pushin' a ton!
See also: dozen, play
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

play the dozens

and shoot the dozens
tv. to trade insulting remarks concerning relatives with another person. (see also (dirty) dozens.) They’re out playing the dozens. There’s a bunch of kids out there messing around shooting the dozens.
See also: dozen, play
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • shoot the dozens
  • the dirty dozens
  • the dozens
  • battle
  • battle with (someone or something)
  • you can dish it out, but you can't take it
  • each
  • needle (one) about (something)
  • needle about
References in periodicals archive
In a 1966 speech, Stokely Carmichael describes a shift in the rhetorical tactics of white racism since the advent of the Freedom Movement: "they couldn't say we were lazy and dumb and apathetic and all that anymore so they got sophisticated and started to play the dozens with us" ([1966] 1970, 471).
Playing the dozens and consuming the Cadillac: Ralph Ellison and civil rights politics
Chapter 11 attempts to explain why people play the dozens. By this point in the book it is clear that there is no unified theory or definition of this ritual.
The Dozens: A History of Ray's Mama
To doubt me on this one ( seduce my ancient footwear ( would be to play the dozens with one's uncle's cousin and be an absolute piggen de wiggen (see Pages 1248, 1109 and 1089).
My Live
To doubt me on this one would be to play the dozens with one's uncle's cousin and be an absolute piggen de wiggen (see pages 1109 and 1089).
Horse dookie can be fun, even if no one understands you
Toure can write about the outsized paranoia of Biggie and DMX, play the dozens with Kanye West about his Jeffrey Hunter-like neckwear, tease about Eminem's Father Knows Best routine with his family and get some licks in on Diddy and Russell Simmons and their lofty ambitions.
Never Drank the Kool-Aid: Essays
(To Bebop) Why'd you let them critics play the dozens with him?
Yardbird's vamp