Karaoke

How to spell karaoke

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce karaoke

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does karaoke mean?

1. nounA form of entertainment in which people sing popular songs over a pre-recorded backing track while following on-screen lyrics.

Karaoke in a sentence

• The pub runs a karaoke night every Friday with a wide song list.

• She finally worked up the courage to try karaoke at the office party.

Where does karaoke come from?

Language of origin: Japanese

Karaoke is a Japanese coinage that entered English in the 1970s and spread worldwide by the 1980s. It is a blend of two parts: kara, meaning 'empty', and oke, a clipped form of okesutora, which is itself the Japanese rendering of the English word 'orchestra'. The literal sense is therefore 'empty orchestra', a backing track with no singer, an apt name for a machine that plays the music while a person supplies the missing vocals. English absorbed the word whole, keeping its Japanese vowel pattern, which is exactly what makes the spelling a trap: the run of vowels k-a-r-a-o-k-e does not match how most speakers say it (commonly 'kerry-oh-kee'). Remembering the 'empty orchestra' origin helps fix the two a's and the lone o in the right places.

How the word is built

• kara (Japanese: empty)
• oke (clipped form of okesutora, a Japanese borrowing of English 'orchestra')