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karaoke

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈkæ.ɹiˌəʊ.ki//
  • United Kingdom//ˈkæ.ɹəˌəʊ.ki//
  • //ˌkæ.ɹiˈoʊ.ki//
  • //ˌkɛɹ.iˈoʊ.ki//
  • //ˈkɑːɹɑːˌoʊkeɪ//

A form of entertainment popular in clubs, at parties, etc, in which individual members of the public sing along to pre-recorded instrumental versions of popular songs, the lyrics of which are displayed for the singer on a screen in time with the music.

noun

  1. 1

    A form of entertainment popular in clubs, at parties, etc, in which individual members of the public sing along to pre-recorded instrumental versions of popular songs, the lyrics of which are displayed for the singer on a screen in time with the music.

    The karaoke has been well received by those who frequent the oriental cabaret scene and adopt its particular social behaviors such as conversation, companionship, being seen, and showing off.

    American Idol will always have a place in my heart. It's where I met Clay. And what could be more exciting than televised karaoke?

    I was always split on Henley. Then I found out that he doesn’t want people to sing his songs at karaoke. In fact, Henley actually forbids karaoke companies from rerecording songs in his catalog.

    A country that's enriched the world with sushi, karaoke and manga, Japan has many devotees, especially among gamers and geeks.

  2. 2

    A karaoke session.

  3. 3

    A karaoke parlour.

  4. 4

    An exercise in which the feet are alternately placed in front of each other while walking sideways to stretch various parts of the lower body and core.

Etymology

Etymology tree Japanese 空 Ancient Greek ὀρχέομαι (orkhéomai) Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-trom Proto-Hellenic *-tron Ancient Greek -τρᾰ (-tră) Ancient Greek ὀρχήστρα (orkhḗstra)bor. Latin orchēstrabor. English orchestrabor. Japanese オーケストラ Japanese カラオケbor. English karaoke Borrowed from Japanese カラオケ (karaoke), from 空(から) (kara, “empty”) + オケ (oke, “orchestra”), a clipping of オーケストラ (ōkesutora), from English orchestra.

verb

  1. 1

    to perform karaoke

Forms

plural
karaokes
past tense
karaoked
past participle
karaoked
present participle
karaokeing
third person singular
karaokes
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).