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Definition of "boogie-woogie" [boogie-woogie]

  • A style of blues piano playing characterized by an up-tempo rhythm, a repeated melodic pattern in the bass, and a series of improvised variations in the treble. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "boogie-woogie" in a sentence
  • "Swing and boogie-woogie were early favorites, then bebop and rhythm and blues."
  • "The East German newspaper Neues Deutschland charged the United States with dumping “a mudslide of boogie-woogie” on Communist youth."
  • "That same year, another East German official declared that by resisting jazz, his countrymen were defending their “national cultural tradition” against both “American imperialist ideologies” and “barbarization by the boogie-woogie ‘culture.’”"
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