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A motion in dancing, when one leg is a little bent, and raised from the floor, and with the other a forward motion is made. Chambers.

horus, the chorus which performed the songs and dances of the dithyrambic odes at Athens, dancing round the altar of Bacchus in a circle. -- Cyclic poets, certain epic poets who followed Homer, and wrote merely on the Trojan war and its heroes; -- so called because keeping within the circle of a singe subject. Also, a…

A tune by which dancing is regulated, as the minuet, the waltz, the cotillon, etc.

One who dances or who practices dancing. The merry dancers, beams of the northern lights when they rise and fall alternately without any considerable change of length. See Aurora borealis, under Aurora.

Aptly; fitly; dexterously; neatly. "Deftly dancing." Drayton. Thyself and office deftly show. Shak.

Having the hair in loose disorder. The dancing maidens are disheveled Mænads. J. A. Symonds.

g ease or rest; as, an easy carriage; a ship having an easy motion; easy movements, as in dancing. "Easy ways to die." Shak.

A dancing tune in the Scotch style.

keeping a balance, or state of being balanced; equipoise. In . . . running, leaping, and dancing, nature's laws of equilibration are observed. J. Denham.

Full of levity; dancing, playing, or frisking about; full of pranks; frolicsome; gay; merry. The frolic wind that breathes the spring. Milton. The gay, the frolic, and the loud. Waller.

Ropedancing.

A Japanese singing and dancing girl.

Relating to bodily motion; consisting of gestures; -- said especially with reference to dancing. Carried away by the enthusiasm of the gestic art. Sir W. Scott.

Egyptian dancing girls, of a lower sort than the almeh.

To perform by the use of the heels, as in dancing, running, and the like. [R.] I cannot sing, Nor heel the high lavolt. Shak.

An unexplained epithet used by Chaucer in reference to ships. By some it is defined as "dancing (on the wave)"; by others as "opposing," "warlike." T. R. Lounsbury.

The act of one who, or that which, hops; a jumping, frisking, or dancing. Hopping Dick (Zoöl.), a thrush of Jamaica (Merula leucogenys), resembling the English blackbird in its familiar manners, agreeable song, and dark plumage.

A lively tune played on a hornpipe, for dancing; a tune adapted for such playing. Many a hornpipe he tuned to his Phyllis. Sir W. Raleigh.

A small violin. "A dancing master's kit." Grew. Prince Turveydrop then tinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, and the young ladies stood up to dance. Dickens.

to acquire understanding of, or skill; as, to learn the way; to learn a lesson; to learn dancing; to learn to skate; to learn the violin; to learn the truth about something. "Learn to do well." Is. i. 17. Now learn a parable of the fig tree. Matt. xxiv. 32.