Hootenanny
n.joyful, energeticplayful
What it means
An informal gathering centered on folk music, singing, and sometimes dancing.
Reach for it when using a culturally rooted informal term for a participatory music event
The harvest hootenanny brought fiddlers and singers from five neighboring towns.
Choose between these
5- playful
singalong
audience participation in familiar songs is the main activity
not when A singalong may be one segment and does not require instrumental folk music.
- everyday
jam session
musicians improvise together without a fixed program
not when A jam session can use any genre and may have no audience, dancing, or communal singing.
- warm
barn dance
social dancing in a rural-style venue is central
not when A barn dance may use recorded or organized dance music and need not feature folk performance.
- professional
folk-music gathering
plain wording should identify both genre and social event
not when The phrase does not convey the informal participatory character of hootenanny.
- literary
ceilidh
a Scottish or Irish social gathering with music and dancing is specifically meant
not when Ceilidh belongs to particular traditions and is not a decorative synonym for any folk event.
Said against
3- formal recital
- silent gathering
- solo practice
It naturally appears in
3- community hootenanny
The community hootenanny pays every featured musician.
- folk hootenanny
A folk hootenanny closed the harvest weekend.
- annual hootenanny
The annual hootenanny invites newcomers to learn the refrains.
Where this comes from
Hootenanny is associated with North American folk culture; use a tradition's own event name where another form is meant.
- Wiktionary, English noun sense: an informal gathering with folk music opens in a new tab · retrieved 2026-07-26
The definition and the example on this page are written here. The dictionaries above ground which meaning is being described, not the wording.