field-holler

British

noun

a cry employing falsetto, portamento, and sudden changes of pitch, used in African-American work songs, later integrated into the techniques of the blues

"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

Example Sentences

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They offered field-holler call-and-response in “Water Fountain,” and they became a unified sisterhood in “Manchild,” which bluntly declares: “Not gonna say yes when what I really mean is no/Not gonna say no unless you know I mean it/I mean it/Don’t beat upon my body.”

From New York Times

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