The high five is a celebratory hand gesture that occurs when two people simultaneously raise one hand, about head high, and push, slide or slap the flat of their palm and hand against the palm and flat hand of their partner. The gesture is often preceded verbally by the phrase "Give me five" or "High five".
There are many origin stories of the high five, but the two best documented candidates are Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke of the Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball team on Oct. 2, 1977, and Wiley Brown and Derek Smith of the Louisville Cardinals men's college basketball team during the 1978-1979 season.
In the United States, there is an initiative to celebrate the third Thursday of April as National High Five Day.
Read more about High Five: Origin, Variations
Famous quotes containing the word high:
“Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It’s the music a man’s spirit sings to his heart, when the earth’s far away and there isn’t any more fear. It’s the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)