Saint Vitus's dance
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of Saint Vitus's dance
C17: so called because sufferers traditionally prayed to Saint Vitus (3rd-century child martyr) for relief and were said to be cured by a visit to his shrine
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Don’t come straggling into the office one morning muttering, “First, gout. Now ague, biliousness, lumbago, Saint Vitus’s dance and dropsy. What’s next, apoplexy?”
From Washington Post • Aug. 16, 2019
S. Saint Vitus's dance, 240. symptoms of, 241. treatment of, 242.
From The Dog by Dinks
They got as much chance with me as a man with Saint Vitus's dance has of landing a trout.
From Just Around the Corner Romance en casserole by Hurst, Fannie
Madame Marsy was bitten by that tarantula whose bite makes modern society move as if afflicted with Saint Vitus's dance.
From His Excellency the Minister by Roberts, Henri
She is pale and emaciated; she has Saint Vitus's dance.
From Shallow Soil by Hyllested, Carl Christian
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
