Reggae
//ˈɹɛɡeɪ// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s and is heavily associated with Rastafarianism, featuring a heavy bass line and percussive rhythm guitar on the offbeat, often with close vocal harmonies. Rastafari, uncountable
"Near-synonym: (earlier) bluebeat"
- 2 popular music originating in the West Indies; repetitive bass riffs and regular chords played on the off beat by a guitar wordnet
Example
More examples"I heard some reggae music playing in the distance."
Etymology
From Jamaican Creole rege (“rags; a quarrel”), see rag; originally used in the 1960s to describe a Jamaican dance. Compare ragtime. Broader musical sense popularized by the 1968 Maytals song “Do the Reggay”.
Related phrases
More for "reggae"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.