folk song

noun

1. a song originating among the people of a country or area, passed by oral tradition from one singer or generation to the next, often existing in several versions, and marked generally by simple, modal melody and stanzaic, narrative verse.

2. a song of similar character written by a known composer.

folk song

noun

1. a song of which the music and text have been handed down by oral tradition among the common people

2. a modern song which employs or reflects the folk idiom

Word History and Origins

Origin of folk song¹

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

One of my earliest memories is of local women singing Ukrainian folk songs as the sun was setting into the Kakhovka on a warm summer evening.

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One widely shared video shows a woman spinning yarn on a traditional hand spindle as a Kashmiri folk song plays in the background.

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They even sing to each other, their World War I-era characters sharing a love of American folk songs that gives them a societally acceptable passion to complement the one they can’t demonstrate.

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Wright said he owned the copyright to the interpretation, but Pinkfong argued that its version was an arrangement of the same folk song, which is in the public domain.

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Wild Mountain Thyme is a Scottish and Irish folk song which was first recorded in 1957 and has been performed by many people.

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