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

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Etymology

Origin of cancan

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

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cancan cancans

Arquette talks about the Apple TV+ comedy series in which she plays a former addict and cancan dancer who decides to become a private investigator.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2023

Daubechies booked a venue, a caterer, a troupe of majorette dancers known for farce — and then at the party made a surprise appearance in the baton-twirling cancan line, disguised in makeup and a tutu.

From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2021

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

From Washington Post ● Nov. 11, 2019

Before the giant ape and the cancan chorus, before the daydreaming misfit and the defiant dancer, before even the dinosaurs and the dragons, first there were the RVs.

From New York Times ● Jul. 5, 2018

We’ll dance a cancan on her parlor table.

From The Golden Woman A Story of the Montana Hills by Ridgwell Cullum

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

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 Arthur Christopher Benson

Still there are cancans at Paris; and cancans we overheard, and precisely in the manner I have related.

From Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief by James Fenimore Cooper

“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 Charles E. Derbyshire

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