ska

American

[skah] / skɑ /

noun

a modern style of vocalized Jamaican popular music, which emerged in the 1950s as a blend of African-Jamaican folk music, calypso, and American rhythm and blues, notable for its shuffling, scratchlike tempo and jazzlike horn riffs on the offbeat.

ska British

/ skɑː /

noun

a type of West Indian pop music of the 1960s, accented on the second and fourth beats of a four-beat bar

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of ska

First recorded in 1960–65; of obscure origin

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Reggae and ska plays in the background.

From The Wall Street Journal

"Only the world's largest radio telescope, the SKA Observatory's SKA-Low telescope, set to be completed in the next decade on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia, will have the capacity to surpass this image in terms of sensitivity and resolution," concluded Associate Professor Hurley-Walker.

From Science Daily

I booked the indie, ska, emo, screamo and pop punk stuff.

From Los Angeles Times

With an interior covered with band stickers and T-shirts and a cramped, enclosed alley with walls covered in gum and graffiti, the Anaheim venue on Lincoln Avenue spent nearly 30 years as a staple for punk, ska, hardcore, emo and more that helped put OC on the map for generations of local music fans.

From Los Angeles Times

It also released excellent records by non-Latin artists such as Talking Heads side project Tom Tom Club, and Japan’s iconic Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023