Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A lively dance in duple time, popular in the 1800s.
  • noun The music for this dance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An obsolete spelling of gallop.
  • noun An obsolete spelling of gallop.
  • noun [F.]
  • noun A lively round dance of German origin.
  • noun Music for such a dance, or in its rhythm, which is duple and quick.
  • To dance the galop. See galop, n., 2.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mus.) A kind of lively dance, in 2-4 time; also, the music to the dance.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A lively French country dance of the nineteenth century, a forerunner of the polka, combining a glissade with a chassé on alternate feet, usually in a fast 2/4 time.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French, gallop, from galoper, to gallop; see gallop.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French; named after the fastest running gait of a horse (see gallop), a shortened version of the original term galoppade.

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Examples

  • The galop is another fashionable dance this winter.

    Manners and Social Usages Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

  • My waltz is the _Deux temps_, for the simple reason that the _Deux temps_ does also for the galop, that is, it does for my galop.

    Happy-Thought Hall 1876

  • The 10 accomplished children of the Royal Danish Ballet school on tour in New York got only a brief chance to perform in the final "galop" of "Napoli—Act III."

    Neapolitan Sunshine Brightens Danish Gloom Robert Greskovic 2011

  • The 10 accomplished children of the Royal Danish Ballet school on tour in New York got only a brief chance to perform in the final "galop" of "Napoli—Act III."

    Neapolitan Sunshine Brightens Danish Gloom Robert Greskovic 2011

  • Robert Macaire, threading the galop with Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished with plumes like the horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd like a will-o-the-wisp.

    The Imaginary Mistress 2007

  • Robert Macaire, threading the galop with Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished with plumes like the horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd like a will-o-the-wisp.

    The Imaginary Mistress 2007

  • For the “rugissements et bondissements, bacchanale et saturnale, galop infernal, ronde du sabbat tout le tremblement,” these words give a most clear, untranslatable idea of the Carnival ball.

    The Paris Sketch Book 2006

  • What a famous room for a galop! — it will hold the whole shire.

    The History of Pendennis 2006

  • The pair danced away with great agility and contentment, — first a waltz, then a galop, then a waltz again, until, in the second waltz, they were bumped by another couple who had joined the Terpsichorean choir.

    The History of Pendennis 2006

  • Misha, it is true, exacted a promise from him to ‘grant all sorts of immunities’ to the peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still seemed pervaded by the

    A Desperate Character 2006

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