Meanings
- uncountableentertainmentA form of recitative between speaking and singing.
Comedy-music is often defined by the idea that the artist is actually a comic character, yet serious bands such as Dry Cleaning and the Mercury-nominated Black Country, New Road use their deadpan sprechgesang to create a more subtle sincerity gap.
2021 September 29, Rachel Aroesti, “Collapsed laughing: how the gap between music and comedy has disappeared”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
Synonyms & antonyms
nouna style of dramatic vocalization between singing and speaking
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- GermanSprechgesang
- Englishsprechgesang
Unadapted borrowing from German Sprechgesang.
More words from German
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
sprechgesang. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sprechgesang
“sprechgesang.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sprechgesang. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sprechgesang,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sprechgesang.
Source: sprechgesang on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.