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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

See Examples For:

ring shout ring-shout

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 segment culminates in a ring shout, a call-and-response circle that enslaved Africans developed to preserve their heritage while strategically not offending their white captors.

From New York Times ● Jul. 4, 2023

In February, Simon was at the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the first appearances of his “Four Black American Dances,” a romp through a ring shout, a waltz, a tap dance and a praise break.

From New York Times ● May 17, 2023

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

Went up there picking a guitar and got all de angels doing the ring-shout round and round de throne.

From "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston