Other forms: dancing, dances, danced
To dance is to move your body in rhythm with music. Dance all night, learn to dance, ask her to dance.
As a noun, a dance is both the activity and a named form — a folk dance, the last dance — and an event: a village dance. Dance floor, dance music and dance class are the standard compounds. Note dance to somebody's tune, meaning to do whatever they want; lead somebody a merry dance, meaning to cause them a great deal of trouble; and that it takes two to tango is the same idea about shared blame.
1verbdanceTo move your body in rhythm with music.~2%
“Everyone got up to dance when the band played their favourite song.”
2nounsetA set of movements to music, or an event for dancing.~98%
“There is a dance in the village hall every second Friday.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 8 sentences found in the wild and placed 8 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
dance is a rhythmic movement.
The word came from Old French danser, whose own origin is disputed — possibly Frankish. It replaced the native Old English words for dancing entirely, which is unusual for something so basic.
Middle English
dauncen
English, today
dance
From Middle English dauncen., of uncertain origin. Displaced native Old English sealtian, Old English frīcian, and partially displaced hlēapan. a doublet of danza.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA