Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To move rhythmically usually to music, using prescribed or improvised steps and gestures.
- intransitive verb Zoology To perform a specialized set of movements to communicate chiefly with other members of the same species.
- intransitive verb To move or leap about excitedly.
- intransitive verb To bob up and down or move about rapidly.
- intransitive verb To appear to flash or twinkle.
- intransitive verb Informal To speak or behave in an evasive or vacillating manner.
- intransitive verb To engage in or perform (a dance).
- intransitive verb To lead (someone) in a dance.
- intransitive verb To cause to move up and down quickly or lightly.
- noun A series of motions and steps, such as the waltz or tango, usually performed to music.
- noun The act or an instance of dancing.
- noun The music composed or played for a certain kind of dance or for a particular dance.
- noun The art of dancing.
- noun A party or gathering of people for dancing.
- noun Zoology An act of communication by dancing.
- idiom (dance attendance on) To attend to or try to please (someone) with eagerness or obsequiousness.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To leap or spring with regular or irregular steps, as an expression of some emotion; move or act quiveringly from excitement: as, he danced with joy.
- To move nimbly or quickly with an irregular leaping motion; bound up and down: as, the blow he gave the table made the dishes dance; the mote dancing in the sunbeam.
- To move the body or the feet rhythmically to music, either by one's self or with a partner or in a set; perform the series of cadenced steps and rhythmic movements which constitute a dance; engage or take part in a dance.
- To give a dancing motion to; cause to move up and down with a jerky, irregular motion; dandle.
- To perform or take part in as a dancer; execute, or take part in executing, the cadenced steps or regulated movements which constitute (some particular dance): as, to
dance a quadrille or a hornpipe. - To lead or conduct with a tripping, dancing movement.
- In the West Indies, especially Trinidad, to clean and polish (cacao) by treading it with the naked feet. The friction caused by the treading removes the mildew from the outside of the beans and at the same time polishes them.
- noun A succession of more or less regularly ordered steps and movements of the body, commonly guided by the rhythmical intervals of a musical accompaniment; any leaping or gliding movement with more or less regular steps and turnings, expressive of or designed to awaken some emotion.
- noun A tune by which dancing is regulated, as the minuet, the waltz, the cotillion, etc.
- noun A dancing-party; a ball; a “hop.”
- noun Figuratively, progressive or strenuous movement of any kind; a striving or struggling motion: often used by old writers in a sarcastic sense, especially in the phrases the new daunce, the old daunce.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To cause to dance, or move nimbly or merrily about, or up and down; to dandle.
- transitive verb to come and go obsequiously; to be or remain in waiting, at the beck and call of another, with a view to please or gain favor.
- intransitive verb To move with measured steps, or to a musical accompaniment; to go through, either alone or in company with others, with a regulated succession of movements, (commonly) to the sound of music; to trip or leap rhythmically.
- intransitive verb To move nimbly or merrily; to express pleasure by motion; to caper; to frisk; to skip about.
- intransitive verb to be hanged.
- noun The leaping, tripping, or measured stepping of one who dances; an amusement, in which the movements of the persons are regulated by art, in figures and in accord with music.
- noun (Mus.) A tune by which dancing is regulated, as the minuet, the waltz, the cotillon, etc.
- noun (Art) an allegorical representation of the power of death over all, -- the old, the young, the high, and the low, being led by a dancing skeleton.
- noun See
Morris . - noun to cause one to go through a series of movements or experiences as if guided by a partner in a dance not understood.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A sequence of rhythmic steps or
movements usually performed tomusic , for pleasure or as a form of social interaction. - noun A social gathering where dancing is designed to take place.
- noun heraldry A
fess that has been modified tozig-zag across the center of acoat of arms fromdexter tosinister . - noun A genre of modern music characterised by sampled beats, repetitive rhythms and few lyrics.
- noun uncountable The art, profession, and study of dancing.
- verb intransitive To move with rhythmic steps or movements, especially in time to music.
- verb intransitive To leap or move lightly and rapidly.
- verb transitive To perform the steps to.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an artistic form of nonverbal communication
- noun taking a series of rhythmical steps (and movements) in time to music
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Emails in inbox right now: 31 *happy dance, happy dance, oh, the happy dance*
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The _Conjunctive_ expresses the _Action_ or _Passion_ conditionally and is always joined with the _Indicative_, or the same _Mood_; as _I will love you, if you wou'd love me_; _I wou'd dance, if you wou'd dance_.
A Short System of English Grammar For the Use of the Boarding School in Worcester (1759) Henry Bate
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For convenience of reference these types of dance may be called _whirling, circling_, and the _figure eight dance_.
The Dancing Mouse A Study in Animal Behavior Robert M. Yerkes 1916
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Do I want to dance -- to _dance_ -- Good God! And talk nonsense and the gossip of the Island with these youths when I have naught to say but that my soul has grown wings and that the cold lamp in my breast has blown out, and lit again with the flame that keeps the world alive?
The Conqueror Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton 1902
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With a vision of creating a night for ` dance kids who want to rock and rock kids who want to dance´
Musicrooms.net 2010
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With a vision of creating a night for ` dance kids who want to rock and rock kids who want to dance´
Musicrooms.net 2010
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With a vision of creating a night for ` dance kids who want to rock and rock kids who want to dance´
Musicrooms.net 2010
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With a vision of creating a night for ` dance kids who want to rock and rock kids who want to dance´
Musicrooms.net 2010
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With a vision of creating a night for ` dance kids who want to rock and rock kids who want to dance´
Musicrooms.net 2010
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With a vision of creating a night for ` dance kids who want to rock and rock kids who want to dance´
Musicrooms.net 2010
chained_bear commented on the word dance
"Dances of any sort were rarely held, and social events seemed to revolve around the vigorous manipulation of vegetable matter—there were flax pullings, wood choppings, apple parings, pumpkin cuttings, and corn huskings. 'Courtin' or keepin' company was an informal proceeding and a universal custom,' Jesse Birch writes in History of Benton County and Historic Oxford, 'yet a flirt was soon found out and given the mitten.'"
—Charles Leerhsen, Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch (New York and London: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 80
October 23, 2008
bilby commented on the word dance
Listen, child, to a wise old wolf:
in dance everything has its own meaning.
Here we've stopped--
we haven't touched,
yet our breath dances in a common rhythm,
always stronger and faster.
- Marjana Savka from 'A Short History of Dance', translated from the Ukrainian by Askold Melnyczuk.
November 10, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word dance
Interesting usage (to me, anyway) on nomos.
March 12, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word dance
"Bette Viner was lucky enough to be invited to visit the harem of a local Amir when she was living in Aden in the mid-1960s with her brigadier husband. ... But with very few words of common language between them conversation was difficult, and the encounter grew stilted. It was then that Mrs Viner's American friend Olga came to the rescue.
"'She shot to her feet saying, "Gee, I reckon they like to dance." She executed a few gay little steps in the middle of a large Persian rug and fortunately they got the message almost at once. One of the women ducked under an old brass bedstead at the far end of the room and produced an old gramophone with an enormous horn, also some Arabian and Hungarian (Heaven knows how they came to be there) records. Olga jived energetically and was rewarded with a belly dance from an immensely fat servant. I was called upon to perform a short ballet sequence and a young concubine retaliated with a passage from a sinuously seductive looking tribal dance. Our British lady friend flatly refused to make a fool of herself as a solo turn but did condescend to lead a conga round the harem. Everyone joined in except the Amir's wife who remained faithful to her tea kettle, but she smiled happily on us all. The women quickly found out how it was done and shouted and laughed and turned the music up louder and louder. When it was finally time to go the Amir's wife gave us each a gourd of local honey. Our Arab driver, waiting at a distance of about 100 yards, was grinning from ear to ear when he saw us and I realised with horror that the noise we had made must have burst through the slits in the walls in the harem and resounded across the desert.... when I met the Amir a few days later, and he told me that his family had enjoyed our visit very much indeed....'"
—Annabel Venning, Following the Drum: The Lives of Army Wives and Daughters Past and Present (London: Headline, 2005), 196–197
May 11, 2010