cancan

American  

[kan-kan] / ˈkænˌkæn /

noun

• cancans
  plural

1. a lively high kicking dance that came into vogue about 1830 in Paris and after 1844 was used as an exhibition dance.

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cancan British  

/ ˈkænˌkæn /

noun

1. a high-kicking dance performed by a female chorus, originating in the music halls of 19th-century Paris

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cancans
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cancan

1840–50; < French, repetitive compound (based on can ) said to be nursery variant of canard duck; see canard

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cancan cancans

Though she’s happy enough with her job as a costumed cancan dancer in a Wild West theme park, necessity drives her toward a new career: private investigator.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2023

It is relatively quiet — Picasso would also paint cancan dancers, but not now — a suave, sophisticated crowd painted by an artist who understood its fashions, body language and interpersonal connections perfectly.

From New York Times ● May 11, 2023

Exuberant cancan melodies from the film soundtracks filtered through the galleries, seeming to animate Lautrec’s imagery.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 11, 2019

Brown said, doing a one-legged cancan kick to prove it.

From Slate ● Jan. 12, 2017

Deslauriers hugged the little woman, and, seized with the delirium of the cancan, whirled about, like a big marionnette, in the midst of the dancers.

From Sentimental Education Vol 1 by Flaubert, Gustave

Before the wedding, she did playful cancans in the vestry and, because it was a cold, snowy day, she remembers: "I put on my father's Long Johns under my wedding dress."

From Time Magazine Archive

It fetches up a lot of gay, happy dancing, much of it with a period touch of cancans and cakewalks.

From Time Magazine Archive

“Quoi v’la tous les cancans d’la s’maine!” sang Gertrude, a proud damsel, who was looking roguishly askance at the Captain-General.

From The Reign of Greed by Derbyshire, Charles E.

There seems, however, really no end to cancans at Paris; for the Duke of Cambridge seems to have shared the same fate.

From The Letters of Queen Victoria : A Selection from Her Majesty's Correspondence between the Years 1837 and 1861 Volume 3, 1854-1861 by Benson, Arthur Christopher

The pompous little beggars with puffed-out wattles and neck ruffs were positively doing cancans and two-steps along the prairie floor.

From The Prairie Wife by Dunn, Harvey