tarantella

plural tarantellas

1. A rapid dance in 6/8 time, originating in Italy, or a piece of music for such a dance.

   "A tarantella, I presume?" blandly suggested the doctor. Miss Mannersley stopped, and rose carelessly from the piano. "It is a Moorish gypsy song of the fifteenth century," she said dryly.

   1895, Bret Harte, The Devotion of Enriquez

   2 more examples

   The set in which they found themselves was composed of English, and Amy was compelled to walk decorously through a cotillion, feeling all the while as if she could dance the tarantella with relish.

   1868–1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, Little Women: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC

   We learn to understand why our addled minds seize so little with precision, why they are caught up and tossed about in a kind of tarantella by headlines and catch-words, why so often they cannot tell things apart or discern identity in apparent differences.

   1922, Walter Lippmann, “chapter v”, in Public Opinion