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• ring shout
  ring shout

  noun

  a group dance of West African origin introduced into parts of the southern U.S. by Black revivalists, performed by shuffling counterclockwise in a circle while answering shouts of a preacher with corresponding shouts, and held to be, in its vigorous antiphonal patterns, a source in the development of jazz.
• ring-shout
  ring-shout

  noun

  a West African circle dance that has influenced jazz, surviving in the Black churches of the southern US

ring shout

American  

noun

1. a group dance of West African origin introduced into parts of the southern U.S. by Black revivalists, performed by shuffling counterclockwise in a circle while answering shouts of a preacher with corresponding shouts, and held to be, in its vigorous antiphonal patterns, a source in the development of jazz.

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ring-shout British  

noun

1. a West African circle dance that has influenced jazz, surviving in the Black churches of the southern US

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Etymology

Origin of ring shout

An Americanism dating back to 1930–35

Example Sentences

In early hip-hop and dance music, Mr. Gibbs heard echoes of the shuffling feet and handclaps of a ring shout, the communal spiritual ritual in which enslaved Africans used their own bodies as instruments.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026

The Rosenbaums published a book on the ring shout in 1998.

From New York Times • Sep. 14, 2022

As the poem proceeds, it describes what she saw at the ring shout, enriched by the imagery she brings to it.

From New York Times • Apr. 10, 2018

But its very existence led Turner to dig deep for African-Muslim elements in Gullah culture, and he found some, in both language and religious rituals like the Gullah circling dance called the ring shout.

From New York Times • Sep. 2, 2010

The field holler, the ring shout,* the sanctified church.

From Time Magazine Archive