A rave (or rave party), is a term, in use since the 1980s, to describe dance parties (often all-night events). At these parties DJs and other performers play electronic dance music (sometimes referred to as "rave music"), with the accompaniment of laser light shows, projected images, and artificial fog.

In the late 1980s, the word "rave" was adopted to describe the subculture that grew out of the acid house movement. That a certain number of rave party attendees used "club drugs" such as MDMA ("ecstasy"), LSD ("acid"), cocaine, amphetamines and, more recently, ketamine, and designer drugs, was taken by authorities as a pretext to ban those parties altogether.

In late 1950s London, the term "rave" was used to describe the "wild bohemian parties" of the Soho beatnik underground. The word was later used in the burgeoning mod youth culture of the early 1960s as the way to describe any wild party in general. A variation of the term was "rave-up" - a term popularized by the band The Yardbirds. People who were gregarious party animals were described as "ravers". Pop musicians such as Keith Moon of The Who and Steve Marriott of The Small Faces and Clare Willans were self-described "ravers". These new usages of the word differed from and expanded slighly on the earlier meaning; to speak exuberantly on a topic to the point of incoherence.

There were multiple manifestations of these words in popular culture:

• The British rock/R&B group The Yardbirds released an album in the United States in 1965 titled Having a Rave Up
• A monthly magazine called "Rave" - targeted primarily at British teenage girls - was successfully published in the UK for 69 consecutive editions from February 1964 to October 1969. It presented articles, interviews and exclusive photograph sessions relating to the contemporary pop music of the era.
• The lyrics of the 1968 hit single Lazy Sunday by the mod band The Small Faces referred to "ravers":

  Wouldn't it be nice to get on with me neighbours?

  But they make it very clear they've got no room for ravers...

  Presaging the word's subsequent 1980s association with electronic music, the word "rave" was part of the title of an electronic music performance event held on 28 January 1967 at London's Roundhouse titled the "Million Volt Light and Sound Rave". The event featured the only known public airing of an experimental sound collage created for the occasion by Paul McCartney and John Lennon during the early stages of the Sgt. Pepper sessions - the legendary Carnival Of Light recording.

  With the rapid change of British pop culture from the Mod era of 1963–1966 to the hippie era of 1967 and beyond, the term fell out of popular usage. During the 1970s and early 1980s until its resurrection, the term was not in vogue (one notable exception being 'Drive-In Saturday' by David Bowie which includes the line 'It's a crash course for the ravers'). Its use during that era would have been perceived as a quaint or ironic use of bygone slang; part of the out-dated "sixties" lexicon along with words such as "groovy". This perception of the word changed again in the late 1980s when the term was revived and adopted by a new youth culture, possibly inspired by the use of the term in Jamaica.