dancing Hear it!

Variant of dance

dance Definition

dance (dans, däns)

intransitive verb danced, dancing danc′·ing

  1. to move the body and feet in rhythm, ordinarily to music
  2. to move lightly and gaily; caper
  3. to bob up and down
  4. to be stirred into rapid movement, as leaves in a wind

Etymology: ME dauncen < OFr danser < ? Frank *dintjan, to tremble, move back and forth

transitive verb

  1. to take part in or perform (a dance)
    1. to cause to dance
    2. to cause to move lightly, bob up and down, etc.

noun

  1. rhythmic movement of the body and feet, ordinarily to music
  2. a particular kind of dance, as the waltz, tango, etc.
  3. the art of dancing, esp. as performed in ballet or modern dance
    1. a party to which people come to dance
    2. one round of dancing at such a party
  5. a piece of music for dancing
  6. rapid, lively movement

Related Forms:

dance Idioms

dance attendance on

to be always near so as to wait on, lavish attention on, etc.

dance to another tune

to alter one's actions or opinions as a result of changed conditions
dancing Usage Examples

Infinitive complement

  • samba: Leaders of the powerful G8 countries ran wild in Oxford on Saturday, shaking hands, waving and dancing to samba rhythms.

Preposition: in

  • aisle: A show guaranteed to have you dancing in the aisles!

dancing Quotes

Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking. —Wain,John Barrington

Ask Nureyev to stop dancing, ask Sinatra to stop singing, then you can ask me to stop playing. —King, BillieJean ne¤  e Moffitt

Dancing is a frenzyand a rage. —Davies, SirJohn

Dancing is a wonderful training for girls, it's the first way you learn to guess what a man isgoing to do before he does it. —Morley, Christopher Darlington

This wondrous miracle did Love devise, For dancing is love's proper exercise. —Davies, SirJohn

Do you want the whole countryside to be laughing at us?öwomen of our years?ömature women, dancing? —Friel, Brian

   Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. —Bible (Old Testament)

Now I know She had rather wear my pelt tanned in a pair Of dancing pumps. —Middleton,Thomas

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought, So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing. —Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

Marbles of the dancing floor Break bitter furies of complexity, Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea. —Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)

Avery merry, dancing, drinking, Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time. —Dryden,John