toe dance

plural toe dances · alternative toedance · alternative toe-dance

1. literallyA dance performed on the balls of the feet or en pointe.

   This is a toe dance that alternates between the toe ( more specifically, the ball of the foot ) and the heel.

   1985, Frets - Volume 7, page 23

   3 more examples

   In the excitement of trying to get the ball launched he may do a momentary toe dance, then crouch, stand, skip, or run before finally lobbing the ball a total of perhaps seven feet.

   1962, W. Cleon Skousen, So You Want to Raise a Boy?, page 65

   Even the toe dance, so much despised by Isadora Duncan and by the schools she inspired, is essentially creative, not athletic.

   1983, Roger Copeland, Marshall Cohen, What is Dance?: Readings in Theory and Criticism, page 40

   The eclipse of male supremacy in dancing onstage began in the 1830s when Marie Taglioni established a foothold for women, employing the toe dance as an essential element of ballet.

   1988, Judith Lynne Hanna, Dance, Sex, and Gender, page 125

2. figurativelyThe act of avoiding an issue by equivocation, complicated diplomacy, or changing the subject.

   Even though the wealth is mine, Gordon manages it, which means I still do the toe dance to convince him that “our money,” as he now calls it, is put to good use.

   2010, Linda Francis Lee, The Devil in the Junior League: A Novel

   2 more examples

   One of my concerns, frankly, is that we are just kind of, you know, we hold a hearing and we talk about it a little bit, and then it disappears from the limelight, and we are kind of doing a toe dance around the problems in Liberia rather than really addressing the problems as forcefully as we should.

   1994, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Subcommittee on African Affairs, U.S. policies toward Liberia, Togo, and Zaire

   We arrived at Quonset Naval Air Station, where Kennedy warned us as he got up to leave the plane that he had a “little toe dance to do” with Rhode Island's Republican governor, John Chafee, who was meeting the president at the airport.

   2014, Benjamin C. Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy

present singular third person toe dances · participle present toe dancing · participle past toe danced · past toe danced · alternative toedance · alternative toe-dance

1. Alternative form of toe-dance.
   1. literallyTo dance on one's toes.

      He was a big guy, weighed about 260 pounds and he toe danced in ballerina shoes!

      2001, Marshal Royal, Claire P. Gordon, Marshal Royal: Jazz Survivor, page 44

      3 more examples

      It was a common scene for one of the older boys to play the fiddle while the others toe danced.

      1955, Louis Salisbury Leatham, The Letham or Leatham family book of remembrance

      Twyla Tharp could have toe danced on the counter, and the president wouldn't have noticed.

      1996, Judy Hogan, The Shade, page 339

      Historians have different opinions how this custom started, but the most accepted theory is that Prince Li Yu, who ruled a southern China kingdom, had a favorite dancer who toe danced inside a high platform shaped like a lotus flower.

      2007, Katie Kubesh, Niki McNeil, Kimm Bellotto, The History of Footwear, page 13

   2. figurativelyTo avoid an issue.

      Doctors toe dance around diagnosis of the disease, too.

      2013, Lori Micken, Eighty Years in Montana, page 205