Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🎶 Tropical lounge music 🗿 Unusual objects
exotica

exotica

1 8.8
A 1950s and 1960s lounge music style with orchestra sounds and unusual instruments to create a tropical mood
  • noun
  • /ɪɡˈzɒtɪkə/
  • Archaic
translation icon : exótica
  • The allegorical female figure as the embodiment of America exhibited a relatively predictable repertoire of elements built on earlier references to exotica.

Examples

  • With this, exotica loses even its exoticism.

    Academic text (2004)

  • ♪ Exotica ♪

    Exotica (1994)

  • It's showtime at the Exotica.

    Exotica (1994)

  • ♪ Exotica ♪ ♪ Exotica ♪

    Exotica (1994)

  • ♪ Exotica ♪ ♪ Exotica ♪

    Exotica (1994)

  • My imagination started to spin out titles, very bad titles: "Shopping for Exotica"; "Stop n'Shop"; "Food, Glorious Food"; "Incredible, Edible Mexico," and so on.

    Academic text (2004)

  • All of which was designed specifically for a target market of bachelors with expensive stereo systems, the same clientele that was fueling demand for the booming exotica scene at about the same time.

    Blog text (23)

  • Musica exotica, it might be called, the exoticization of repertoire for various levels and settings, with the implicit assumption that the more distant the culture from which the music has come, the better.

    Academic text (2002)

  • Somehow the exotica with which we anthropologists concern ourselves—sorcerers and their power, for instance—cloud not only Muezzin's or Liakot's minds but our own.

    Academic text (2001)

  • The lounge was filled with exotica music, creating a relaxed atmosphere perfect for the evening.

How Exotic

exotica
  • Archaic
1 8.8
gentle Muzak
  • US
6.7

Surface Forms

exotica singular
exoticae plural

Morphology

exotica = exotic (semi-transparent) = exotic + a

The formation from 'exotic' to 'exotica' is understandable as a collective/nominal formation but the '-a' ending is not a standard productive English suffix, and the specialized music-genre sense requires cultural knowledge.

Etymology

Exotica comes from exotic, with the Greek prefix exo- meaning 'outside' and the ending -ica suggesting a collection of 'things'. So exotica was used for music that makes you think of 'foreign' or tropical places, which is why the genre aims to create an unusual, faraway mood.