disco
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Popular dance music.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
diskohSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɪskoʊ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Popular dance music (especially in the late 1970s); melodic with a regular bass beat; intended mainly for dancing at discotheques
A public dance hall for dancing to recorded popular music
uncountablemusic
A genre of dance music that was popular in the 1970s, characterized by elements of soul music with a strong Latin-American beat and often accompanied by pulsating lights.
british
A dance, a social gathering where dancing is the main activity.
verb
Dance to disco music
intransitive
To dance disco-style dances.
intransitive
To go to discotheques.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Popular dance music (especially in the late 1970s); melodic with a regular bass beat; intended mainly for dancing at discotheques
Used this way, disco is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use disco
- “We went to a retro party with a disco ball and 1970s music.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Street names for methylenedioxymethamphetamine.
Popular dance music (especially in the late 1970s).
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.