doo-wop

[doo-wop]

noun Popular Music.

a style of small-group vocal harmonizing, commercialized as a type of so-called street singing in the 1950s, in which words and nonsense syllables are chanted in rhythmic harmony to support the stylized melody of the lead singer.

Origin of doo-wop

representing the chanted syllables

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for doo-wop

Contemporary Examples of doo-wop

I used to sing just to do it, but then Art put together a doo-wop group.
The Stacks: The Neville Brothers Stake Their Claim as Bards of the Bayou
John Ed Bradley
April 27, 2014
I knew a doo-wop group that sings in the subway and around the city, and I wanted to get them involved.
Doo-Wop ‘We Can’t Stop’: Behind the Ridiculously Good Miley Cyrus Cover
Kevin Fallon
September 11, 2013
Amy Winehouse incorporated a lot of Motown and soul and doo-wop into her stuff, an updated version of it.
Doo-Wop ‘We Can’t Stop’: Behind the Ridiculously Good Miley Cyrus Cover
Kevin Fallon
September 11, 2013
This kind of situation happened over and over again in the big-band years and later during the doo-wop era.
Scorsese's Favorite Gangster Movies
Martin Scorsese
September 8, 2010

British Dictionary definitions for doo-wop

doo-wop

noun

rhythm-and-blues harmony vocalizing developed by unaccompanied street-corner groups in the US in the 1950s

Word Origin for doo-wop

C20: of imitative origin

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for doo-wop

1958, from the nonsense harmony phrases sung under the vocal lead (this one attested from mid-1950s).