rootsyadj.
/ˈruːtsi/, U.S. /ˈrutsi/, /ˈrʊtsi/ colloquial.
1.
a. Of music or its performance: traditional, authentic, homespun; unpolished, uncommercialized; spec. characteristic of or influenced by (esp. American) folk or blues traditions. Cf. root n.1 Compounds 3a(a).
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society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > folk music > [adjective] > other folk music
Celtic1816
down home1907
old-time1908
mariachi1940
klezmer1961
rootsy1962
blue-eyed1965
sakkie-sakkie1970
old-timey1972
pseudo-folk1976
norteña1983
1962 N.Y. Times 25 Feb. x. 20/3 Miss Bird has a ‘rootsy’ country voice, which sounds anomalous in this urban context.
1982 Face May 11/2 Alison places an ad in the local paper for a ‘rootsy blues band’.
1986 Sunday Express Mag. 14 Sept. 54/1 His object? To bring the rootsy heartland sounds of Appalachian song back into the mainstream.
2006 A. Summers One Train Later x. 163 The pub rockers are a new breed who have returned to a more rootsy rhythm-and-blues-based sound.
b. Of reggae music: expressive of a distinctive Jamaican (or more generally, Caribbean) cultural identity; characteristic of or influenced by roots reggae (roots reggae n. at root n.1 Compounds 3b).
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1975 Sunday Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 12 Oct. (Sunday Mag.) 8 Lovers of rootsy dubs music will no doubt add these to their collection.
1977 Westindian World 3 June 13/3 Although this album is much more rootsy than the last, it is still very much in the ebb and flow of the ‘international reggae’ stream.
1997 S. Barrow & P. Dalton Reggae viii. 332/2 Rootsier offerings such as Errol Dunkley's 1978 updating of his own ‘Little Way Different’ stand up well twenty years on.
2009 Metro (Dublin) (Nexis) 5 Jan. 13 It's got this gritty bassline and good drums, and it's done by such a brilliant rootsy reggae band.
2. Caribbean. Characteristic, representative, or supportive of Caribbean culture, esp. as identified with a shared African heritage. Cf. root n.1 13b.
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1977 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 24 June 18/4 (advt.) Comfy calico makes the scene in this rootsy wraparound with patch pocket and colour contrasting trim.
1980 Amandala (Belize) 6 June 7 But another brother, not so rootsy, for many years has been arguing that people who encourage black youth in Creole are ruining them.
1991 Man 26 139 The foreign minister Basdeo Panday was removed by the black-dominated government and replaced by another Hindu, Sahadeo Basdeo, who was nevertheless considered a less ‘rootsy’ Hindu than the former.
1997 B. King Derek Walcott & West Indian Drama iii. xiv. 275 Such dance..might be contrasted to the ‘predictable vigorous paralysis’ of the Best Village performances with their supposed emphasis on being ‘rootsy’.
2006 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 13 Jan. d1/2 (caption) Caterer Lorraine Fung who prepared the mouth-watering, rootsy items.
3. Chiefly U.S. Characteristic or reminiscent of traditional (esp. American) culture and customs; homely, down-to-earth; authentic, unpretentious.
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1977 Chicago Tribune 30 Dec. iii. 1/1 The idea was to create an unpretentious, unsophisticated, friendly place [sc. a restaurant], very rootsy with a French feeling.
1979 Washington Post 9 Feb. (Weekend section) 1 Take Valentine's Day at face value: air-brushed on a quilt, imprinted on a pillowcase or sculpted into a mug, or even made into a chair. ‘It's not a “Me Decade” thing at all. It's more of a futuristic “rootsy” thing.’
1988 San Diego Union-Tribune (Nexis) 21 Jan. ii. 1 We've always been a neighborhood bar, fashioned more after an English pub than an American disco... North County is a very ‘rootsy’ kind of place.
2002 L. Purdom Traveler's Compan. New Eng. (ed. 3) 75/2 Boston's ‘Left Bank’ neighbor, Cambridge—a crazy-quilt mix of cosmopolitan neighborhoods itself, and with a more casual, rootsy alternative to dining and nightlife.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1962