Word.ws English Dictionary

doo-wop

doo-wop noun: a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that was mostly popular within Black Americans of African descent in the mid-1950s to the early 1960s that is best characterized by nonsensical backing vocals with very little to no instrumentation.

Noun

doo-wop (uncountable)

  1. A style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that was mostly popular within Black Americans of African descent in the mid-1950s to the early 1960s that is best characterized by nonsensical backing vocals with very little to no instrumentation.
    • The R&B groups possessed a grittiness and soulful earnestness that was soon to be emulated by street-corner doo-wop groups, some of whom would achieve commercial success with instrumentally arranged hit records.2016, Lawrence Pitilli, Doo-Wop Acappella, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 27

Verb

doo-wop (third-person singular simple present doo-wops, present participle doo-wopping, simple past and past participle doo-wopped)

  1. (intransitive) To perform music in this style.

Forms of doo-wop

Noun
alternative formdoo wop
alternative form (rare)doowop
Verb
third-person singular presentdoo-wops
present participledoo-wopping
past participledoo-wopped
pastdoo-wopped

Origin of doo-wop

Coined by DJ Gus Gossert in the 1970s, referring to (mostly) white rock-and-roll groups of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The name is onomatopoeic, representing the nonlexical backing vocals of some songs of the genre.

Words formed from doo-wop

Phrases with doo-wop

Questions about doo-wop

What does doo-wop mean?
Doo-wop means a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that was mostly popular within Black Americans of African descent in the mid-1950s to the early 1960s that is best characterized by nonsensical backing vocals with very little to no instrumentation.
What part of speech is doo-wop?
Doo-wop can be a noun or a verb.

Words near doo-wop in the dictionary

  1. doo-doo
  2. doo-doo hole
  3. doo-doo holes
  4. doo-hickey
  5. doo-hickeys
  6. doo-wop
  7. doo-wop progression
  8. doo-wop progressions
  9. doo-wopped
  10. doo-wopper
  11. doo-woppers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doo-wop (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: “doo-wop.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doo-wop. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.