dingolay

present singular third person dingolays · participle present dingolaying · participle past dingolayed · past dingolayed

1. CaribbeanintransitiveTo perform a kind of lively dance with hand movements.

   Hands clapped, feet tapped, bodies dingolayed.

   1945, Glanville [Wyncoop] Smith, Many a Green Isle, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, →OCLC, page 268

   5 more examples

   Believe me, friends, if I were King / I'd marry any woman and give her a ring, / I wouldn't give a damn what the people say / So long as she can wash, cook, and dingolay. [Commenting on the abdication of Edward VIII.]

   1937, Arnold Gingrich, editor, Esquire: The Magazine for Men, volume 8, Chicago, Ill.: Esquire, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 109; also quoted in Catherine A. Sunshine, “Caribbean Unity, the Frustrated Dream”, in The Caribbean: Survival, Struggle and Sovereignty, Washington, D.C.: EPICA, 1988, →ISBN, part 7 (In the Shadow of the Empire), page 224, column 1

   "Madam, we have a way to say when somebody can walk well, we say they dingolay well." Pamela laughed. "You mean that Don … can dingolay well," Lalaja laughed.

   c. 1970–1980, D. W. Rogers, Lalaja, a Tale of Retribution, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Frasers Printerie, →OCLC, page 164

   All he did was duck, and there he was, in Brazil, serenading in the moonlight, and round the campfire some women dancing samba and the music hot like fire. And everybody dingolaying. And same time somebody calling him, "Come, come. Trinidad on fire."

   1994, Learie Alleyne-Forte, Jokers on the Abyss’ Edge: A Collection of Short Stories, San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago: Learie Alleyne-Forte, →OCLC, page 19

   Inez come leh we jam for Crop Over Festival, come leh we dingolay

   1999, Elizabeth F. Watson, From “Ma Boy” to a King: John King, 1982–1998: An Annotated Discography of Popular Music from Barbados, Saint Michael, Barbados: Research Riddims, →ISBN, page 96

   The crowd was wild as she "dingolayed" to get the attention of the male lead singer.

   2010, Annette Osborne, “Roses for Grandma”, in … As a Tale That Is Told, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, section 5 (Jascmin), page 139