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voice-over

voice-over

604 3.6
A spoken narration in a film or TV show by someone not seen on screen
  • noun
  • /ˈvɔɪsˌoʊvər/
translation icon : voz en off
  • The movie featured a famous actor doing the voice-over for the main character's inner thoughts.
  • a voice-over narration
  • a voice-over commentary
  • explains in a voice-over

And so you're essentially doing like a voice over but for a song.

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Examples

  • Each edited clip began with a voice-over that introduced the two teams competing and indicated the team in possession.

    Academic text (2005)
  • The dialogue begins in voice-over as the title card fades.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • And and so I, I even did a voice over for a book once.

  • Also work on maybe some web series, some voice over things.

  • And it got to a point where now the voice over work is not hard no more.

  • And this, the voice over was equally brilliant, I thought.

  • Today I'm going to be doing her voice over, so let's get started.

  • They'll go in post and have the actor come in and voice over the line.

  • GAGE: I need to record some voice overs for the opening of the documentary.

  • Any idiot can write voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.

    Fiction book (2002)

How Prominent

commentary
  • Literature
212 3.7
narration
23 3.4
voice-over
604 3.6
background level
  • Specialized
1 4.6

Surface Forms

voice-over singular
voice-overs plural
voice overs plural
voice over singular

Morphology

voice-over = voice (transparent) = over + voice

The noun denotes a 'voice' that is placed 'over' (superimposed on) images or other audio, a direct compositional meaning. [Postprocessing: moved 'over' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

Voice-over comes from the common words voice ('sound from a person') and over ('on top of' or 'above'), and it names a voice you hear 'over' the picture because the speaker is not seen on screen.