vocals
- 1The words of a song along with the other sounds a vocalist sings.
The band layered harmonized vocals over a simple guitar line.
Critics praised the lead vocals on her debut album.
Similarsinging
Note
In music the singing on a track is treated as one collective whole, so this form has no singular partner and takes a plural verb: the vocals are too loud in the mix. It covers wordless sounds as well as lyrics, and it is usually qualified by role or texture, as in lead vocals, backing vocals and harmonized vocals.
- 2Plural of vocal.
The engineer compared the two vocals side by side.
Different vocals were tried before the song felt complete.
Note
Every countable meaning of the singular takes an ordinary -s plural here: separate sung parts or takes, separate sung performances, vowel sounds in phonetics, and even the Catholic electors who hold a right to vote. Because the count is real, "two vocals" means two distinct parts that can be set side by side. That separates it from the plural-only music sense, where the word simply names all the singing on a track.
vocals is a form of vocal
vocal, noun: The sung portion of a piece of music. Full entry
- Forms
- vocalvocals plural
- Spelling
- vocal → vocals: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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