boogie-woogie

English

Etymology

Reduplication of boogie (“party”), of unknown origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌbʊɡiˈwʊɡi/, /ˌbuːɡiˈwuːɡi/
• Rhymes: -ʊɡi, -uːɡi

Noun

boogie-woogie (countable and uncountable, plural boogie-woogies)

1. (music) A style of blues piano music.
2. (dance) A style of swing dance.
   • 1953, Ahmet Ertegun (lyrics and music), “Mess Around”, performed by Ray Charles:

     Ah, everybody was juiced, you can bet your soul / They did the boogie-woogie with a sturdy roll

Translations

music genre

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 布吉伍吉 (bùjíwǔjí), 搏基沃基 (bójīwòjī)

• Esperanto: bugio
• Estonian: bugi-vugi sg
• French: boogie-woogie (fr) m
• German: Boogie-Woogie m
• Japanese: ブギウギ (bugiugi)
• Korean: 부기우기 (bugiugi)
• Macedonian: буги-вуги n (bugi-vugi)
• Marathi: बूगी-वूगी (būgī-vūgī)
• Russian: буги-ву́ги (ru) n (bugi-vúgi)

Further reading

• boogie-woogie on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “boogie”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• “boogie”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.