Meanings
plural cinque-paces
- obsoleteA lively dance, the galliard, whose steps were regulated by the number five.
1 more example
For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes Repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]
Cite this entry
cinque-pace. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cinque-pace
“cinque-pace.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cinque-pace. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cinque-pace,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cinque-pace.
Source: cinque-pace on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.