folk music
noun
Simple meaning
Any genre of music originating from the ethnic community of a specific region, often passed down through oral tradition.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fohkmyoozikSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfoʊkmˈjuzɪk
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
Any genre of music originating from the ethnic community of a specific region, often passed down through oral tradition, without recorded songwriters and possessing a clear purpose or social function.
Any contemporary music in the style of traditional folk music, especially a specific genre of originally American popular music that draws on Anglo-American musical forms.
The traditional and typically anonymous music that is an expression of the life of people in a community
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Any genre of music originating from the ethnic community of a specific region, often passed down through oral tradition, without recorded songwriters and possessing a clear purpose or social function.
Used this way, folk music is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Clear and precise
- Usage feel
- Precise and approving
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.