rock 'n' roll
552
3.0
- noun
- /rɑk ən roʊl/
:
rock and roll
- This is rock 'n' roll.
- rock 'n' roll music
- sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll
- drugs and rock 'n' roll
Examples
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Roberto and I began to tune in to rock 'n' roll music on the radio.
Academic text (2009) -
I soon discovered that rock 'n' roll was a type of popular music.
Academic text (2009) -
We built this city on rock 'n' roll.
-
We're talking about rock 'n' roll here, Miss Grant.
-
Let's hear some rock 'n' roll.
-
Surprisingly, given the content of his books, King is a regular guy who likes rock 'n' roll and bowling.
Fiction book (1999) -
Not the sappy slow dances, but the rock 'n' roll, free-spirited, sexy, shimmying kind.
Fiction book (1999) -
The jukebox explodes with rock 'n' roll, and she jiggles away to the Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace."
Fiction book (1990) -
Roberto and I began to tune in to rock 'n' roll music on the radio.
-
Let's hear some rock 'n' roll now that the party is starting.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A style of popular music with strong guitar and drum sounds
107
1.8
A type of popular music from the 1950s with a strong beat and electric guitars
33
1.6
Popular songs with loud electric guitars and a strong beat
4
2.6
Popular music from 1950s America with a strong beat and simple tunes
1
2.5
A lively style of popular music from 1950s America that mixes blues and country
Surface Forms
Morphology
rock + 'n' + roll
The components 'rock' and 'roll' both evoke motion/dance and 'rock' is already associated with music, so a learner who knows the constituents could plausibly infer this is a type of music related to dancing. However, the specific conventionalized meaning as a distinct 1950s genre with particular stylistic features is lexicalized and not fully predictable from the parts alone, so prior exposure or cultural knowledge is usually required for full understanding.
Etymology
Rock 'n' roll comes from older uses of the words rock and roll, where rock meant 'to move back and forth' and roll meant 'to sway or turn'. Radio hosts in the 1950s used that image of movement to name the new music that makes people dance, so the name fits the music's strong beat and dance feeling.