Negro spiritual
4
8.6
- noun
- /ˈniːɡroʊ ˈspɪrɪtʃuəl/
- NSFW
:
espiritual negro
- During the service, the congregation joined together to sing a beautiful Negro spiritual that filled the room with hope.
- sing a Negro spiritual
- old Negro spirituals
Examples
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A mix tape of Negro spirituals.
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When you grow up on Negro spirituals, everything else seems bloodless in comparison.
Blog text (25) -
Nothing else to do but follow that old Negro spiritual: "We fall down," and then we get up.
Blog text (3) -
But, as the old Negro spiritual says, I will not be moved.
Blog text (32) -
l always wanted to sing Negro spirituals.
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We will be able to speed up that day... when all of God's children — black men and white men, Jews and gentiles... Protestants and Catholics — will be able to join hands... and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual...
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A choir of nurses from Health sang Negro spirituals, and those couples from Gateways who were fortunate enough to have survived together into their seventies or even eighties held hands and fought back the tears.
Fiction book (1994) -
As the choir performed the Negro spiritual, the audience was moved by its deep emotional resonance and history.
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At the cultural festival, many artists showcased their talents by singing traditional Negro spirituals that reflected their heritage.
Synonyms
57
3.6
A type of Christian music with strong, emotional singing often heard in churches
10
6.3
A religious song from the American South often sung with strong feeling
1
2.1
A song sung as part of religious worship or ceremonies
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'Negro' (referring to Black people) + 'spiritual' (a religious song) yields the meaning 'religious songs of Black Americans,' so a learner who knows both words can infer the sense. The term's transparency is unaffected by the fact that 'Negro' is now archaic and offensive — that is a register/cultural issue rather than a semantic opacity.
Etymology
Negro spiritual comes from the religious songs Black people in the American South created during slavery. These songs used simple images and Bible stories to show 'faith' and 'hope' and sometimes hid secret messages, so today the term means those powerful religious songs.