Word.ws English Dictionary

call and response

call and response noun: an interaction between speaker and listener, in which statements of the speaker are rapidly followed by responses from the listener.

Noun

call and response (uncountable)

  1. An interaction between speaker and listener, in which statements of the speaker are rapidly followed by responses from the listener.
    • An oath sworn or affirmed orally is often given in call and response, where the official reads each line of the oath, and the affiant repeats the line back.
    • Donald Trump didn’t shy away from several Qanon chants that erupted throughout the last leg of his New Hampshire campaign on Monday. ¶ During a quiet moment of the rally, attendees engaged in a bit of call-and-response with the GOP front-runner, shouting things at Trump for his reactions.2024 January 23, Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, “A Creepy QAnon Chant Rises at Trump’s Rally—and He Nods and Smiles”, in The New Republic
  2. (singing) A musical technique in which one or more performers calls and others, often the audience, respond with alternating musical phrases.
  3. A prayer or preaching verbal technique similar to this.
    Synonyms:
    litany

Synonyms of call and response

Forms of call and response

alternative formcall-response
alternative formcall-and-response

Questions about call and response

What does call and response mean?
Call and response means an interaction between speaker and listener, in which statements of the speaker are rapidly followed by responses from the listener.
What part of speech is call and response?
Call and response is a noun.

Words near call and response in the dictionary

  1. call a spade a spade, not a big spoon
  2. call ahead
  3. call an ambulance
  4. call an audible
  5. call and collect
  6. call and response
  7. call around
  8. call away
  9. call back
  10. call backs
  11. call balls and strikes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: call and response (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “call and response.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/call_and_response. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.