minuet

plural minuets

1. A slow graceful dance consisting of a coupé, a high step, and a balance.
2. entertainmentA tune or air to regulate the movements of the minuet dance: it has the dance form, and is commonly in 3/4, sometimes 3/8, measure.
3. entertainmentA complete short musical composition inspired by and conforming to many formal characteristics of the traditional musical accompaniment to the dance of same name.
4. entertainmentA movement which is part of a longer musical composition such as a suite, sonata, or symphony which is inspired by and conforming to formal characteristics of the dance of same name.

present singular third person minuets · participle present minueting · participle past minueted · past minueted

1. To dance a minuet.

   After he had raved his time upon the stage, the ladies and knights again minueted for an hour, and again gave place.

   1838, William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger, A Voyage Round the World, page 318

   2 more examples

   Within the same circle with the pigeons, were beautiful albatrosses, poising and minueting with them in the most pleasing fellowship.

   1840, “An Officer of the U. S. Navy,”, in Around the World: A Narrative of a Voyage in the East India Squadron, Under Commodore George C. Read, page 163

   This set the pattern for four years, as the two monarchs minueted around the vast Commonwealth, never again to face each other personally in battle.

   2001, Tony Sharp, Pleasure and Ambition: The Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong, page 185