Meanings
plural soubresauts
- balletA sudden jump from both feet, travelling forward in first, third, or fifth position and landing on both feet in the same position as they started.
1 more example
She took to the air so naturally that it made you feel, retrospectively, that this had always been her destiny from her entrance in Act I. Springing up from both feet while keeping those feet together (in soubresauts), she drove the audience — which had been in a tizzy of excitement all along — wild.
2009 June 15, Alastair Macaulay, “Natural Liftoff and Intense Inner Life for a Daughter of the Air”, in New York Times
Origin
- Frenchsoubresaut
- Englishsoubresaut
Borrowed from French soubresaut, itself an obsolete form of sursaut. Doublet of somersault.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
soubresaut. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/soubresaut
“soubresaut.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/soubresaut. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “soubresaut,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/soubresaut.
Source: soubresaut on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.