Word.ws English Dictionary

shoegazing

UK/ˈʃuːˌɡeɪ.zɪŋ/US/ˈʃuˌɡeɪ.zɪŋ/

shoegazing noun: a subgenre of alternative rock music popularised in early 1990s, characterised by a dreamlike sound making much use of effect pedals, and by a detached or introverted performance style. Also the present participle and gerund of shoegaze.

Noun

shoegazing (uncountable)

  1. (UK) A subgenre of alternative rock music popularised in early 1990s, characterised by a dreamlike sound making much use of effect pedals, and by a detached or introverted performance style.
    • "[…]Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong here, Danny, but wasn't it you who told me that true shoegazing began and ended with Slowdive's 12-inch debut: the imaginatively titled, 'Slowdive'?”
      “You're taking me out of context here, dude. What I meant was that it was the epoch of the genre. The other bands...2006, James Buckley, Celebrate Myself, page 12
    • Johansson and Sitek started out in more faithful lo-fi style before filtering the songs through an indie-rock sensibility that's equal parts postpunk-gothic, 4AD dreampop, shoegazing drone, and TV on the Radio epicness.2011, Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, page 491
    Synonyms:
    shoegaze

Also used as

shoegazing is also the present participle and gerund of shoegaze.

Synonyms of shoegazing

Origin of shoegazing

From shoe + gazing, because of the tendency of such performers to look down rather than at the crowd and the heavy use of effect pedals.

Questions about shoegazing

What does shoegazing mean?
Shoegazing means a subgenre of alternative rock music popularised in early 1990s, characterised by a dreamlike sound making much use of effect pedals, and by a detached or introverted performance style.
What part of speech is shoegazing?
Shoegazing is a noun.
How do you pronounce shoegazing?
Shoegazing is pronounced /ˈʃuːˌɡeɪ.zɪŋ/ (UK).

Words near shoegazing in the dictionary

  1. shoegazed
  2. shoegazer
  3. shoegazers
  4. shoegazes
  5. shoegazey
  6. shoegazing
  7. shoegazy
  8. shoegear
  9. shoehorn
  10. shoehorned
  11. shoehorning

Source and license

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