Entry · catalog no. 9425
lining out
/ /ˈlaɪnɪŋ ˈaʊt/ /LY-ning OWT
noun · Southern United States · 1800s
✓ Verified
1.
A way of singing hymns in which a leader speaks or sings one line and the congregation answers by singing it back, usually slowly and with embellishment.
“Deacon Moore started the lining out and the whole church moaned it back.”
Origin & Attribution
A congregational practice in which a leader gives out each line of a hymn for the people to sing back. It came to Black churches in the American South through the Isaac Watts hymns, and Black congregations transformed it into a distinctly African American form, often called Dr. Watts singing. William T. Dargan's study Lining Out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans (University of California Press, 2006) traces the tradition.
2006
Dargan publishes the major study of Black Dr. Watts hymn singing
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
Southern United States · 1800s
Spoken by
Black Baptist and Holiness churchgoers in the South
$LININGThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady226 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
40/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1800
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
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Citations & Sources
■
+ Cite a sourceWilliam T. Dargan, Lining Out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans, University of California Press, 2006
book
See also