dabbing

IPA/ˈdæb.ɪŋ/
KK[dˈæbɪŋ]IPA/ˈdæb.ɪŋ/

dabbing — noun

1. A dance pose from hip‑hop culture: you drop your head toward one shoulder, stret

1.noun
Definition

A dance pose from hip‑hop culture: you drop your head toward one shoulder, stretch one arm out horizontally, and bend the other arm so your fist comes near your face.

Example

Rodrigo and his friends learned dabbing from a hip-hop video during lunch break.

collocation: learn dabbing

When Élise showed her parents dabbing, her father tried to copy the pose and laughed.

collocation: show + dabbing as direct object

Common collocations
  • do dabbing
  • perform dabbing
  • learn dabbing
  • try dabbing
  • doing dabbing
Synonyms
  • dab

    the short form used as a count noun for the pose — 'He struck a dab for the photo'

Grammar Patterns

do dabbing

learn dabbing

doing dabbing

Usage Note

This noun refers specifically to the viral dance move that swept through pop culture in the mid‑2010s. It is uncountable — you do or perform dabbing, not *a dabbing. The term is informal and closely tied to hip‑hop culture.

Common Mistakes

He was dabbing his face with a towel during the party.
He was doing dabbing during the party.
The dance term dabbing is unrelated to the ordinary verb dab (to touch lightly). The dance uses the structure do / perform dabbing, not the -ing form of dab.

Word family

Common collocations

Nouns

Etymology

EnglishAmerican hip‑hop slang

The dance move known as dabbing emerged from Atlanta hip‑hop culture in the early 2010s and was popularised by the rap group Migos around 2015. The name may come from the arm motion, which resembles someone covering a sneeze or cough (a 'dab' of the arm), or from the cannabis concentrate called 'dab' — both possible roots are debated. What is certain is that the term was repurposed from existing English slang to name a specific dance pose.