rigadoon
Americannoun
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a lively dance, formerly popular, for one couple, characterized by a jumping step and usually in quick duple meter.
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a piece of music for this dance or in its rhythm.
noun
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an old Provençal couple dance, light and graceful, in lively duple time
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a piece of music for or in the rhythm of this dance
Etymology
Origin of rigadoon
1685–95; < French rigaudon, perhaps from name Rigaud
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.
An indignant captain looks like “he’d just been asked if he danced the rigadoon or played the hurdy-gurdy.”
From New York Times • Sep. 22, 2022
This might be true if The Wonder Bar were really a night box where one could attend the entertainment and at the same time, eat, drink, rigadoon and speak freely with friends.
From Time Magazine Archive
All night long shouting crowds surged up & down under the huge plane trees of the ramblas to rigadoon round the statue of Christopher Columbus and back up the hill again.
From Time Magazine Archive
No shades will gather at his tune To dance their ghostly rigadoon, Only that lonely voice will cleave The everlasting afternoon.
From Eight Harvard Poets by Cummings, E. Estlin
To build a city he had only to play a rigadoon and a minuet; but the other hero destroyed them by the sound of rams' horns.
From Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume by
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.
