Highland fling

noun

A solo dance of the Scottish Highlands.

Meanings

nounHighland fling (plural Highland flings)

plural Highland flings

  1. A solo dance of the Scottish Highlands.

    The artichokes bounded up and down On top of the pumpkins' heads, And the cabbage was dancing the highland fling All over the onion beds.

    1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 156
    2 more examples

    When Dandy Dinmont, after executing two or three caprioles, and cutting the Highland-fling, by way of ridicule of his wife's anxiety, at last deigned to sit down, and commit his round, black, shaggy bullet of a head to her inspection.

    1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter 3, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC

    She had never danced a step in her life, but that experienced girl capering with circus grace in the Highland fling would, she knew, be as nothing to her given such inspiriting music.

    1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 185
Cite this entry
APA

Highland fling. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Highland%20fling

MLA

“Highland fling.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Highland%20fling. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Highland fling,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Highland%20fling.

Source: Highland fling on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.