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doo-wop

American

[doo-wop] / ˈduˌwɒp /

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.

doo-wop British

/ ˈduːˌwɒp /

noun

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

"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

Etymology

Origin of doo-wop

Representing the chanted syllables

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

I was like, “I don’t want to do it in the doo-wop kind of Motown way.”

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026

The Brooklyn native and student of the famed Julliard School in New York was a founder of the doo-wop group The Tokens in the late 1950's.

From BBC • Feb. 27, 2026

By the 1960s their doo-wop sound had started to evolve into funk.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 29, 2025

That persistent harmonica intro or, god-forbid, his later forays into doo-wop were an eternal annoyance, part of the reason he started looking for some alternative in the first place.

From Salon • Dec. 14, 2025

When they finished, they cleared their plates, stood on the tables, and sang, in perfect five-part harmony, a doo-wop version of the old Drifters song “Under the Boardwalk.”

From "Forged by Fire" by Sharon M. Draper

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023