dance attendance on

Idioms  

1. Wait on attentively and obsequiously, obey someone's every wish or whim. For example, He expected his secretary to dance attendance on him so she quit her job. This expression alludes to the old custom of making a bride dance with every wedding guest. In the 1500s it was used first to mean “await” an audience with someone, but by about 1600 it had acquired its present meaning. Also see at someone's beck and call.

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Example Sentences

Servants dance attendance on this obstreperous youngster, whose haughtiness is no doubt inflamed by her cold, aristocratic mother and distracted military captain father.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 28, 2023

The people who dance attendance on him are all parodistically based on people who surrounded Coward when he was at the height of his fame in prewar London.

From Time Magazine Archive

The best scenes in the picture are those in which the two men dance attendance on their mutual wife to some pretty, witty choreography by Jack Cole.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is also the most conjested wake in history: hundreds of fictional and historical characters dance attendance on poor Finnegan as he is laid out over 628 pages.

From Time Magazine Archive

He knew very well that the Emperor would not delay; that he would use every minute to strengthen his position; that he would compel events, not dance attendance on them.

From Affairs of State by Stevenson, Burton Egbert