Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

fouetté

American  
[fwe-tay] / fwɛˈteɪ /

noun

Ballet.
  • fouettés
    plural
  1. a whipping movement of the free leg, often executed during a turn.


fouetté British  
/ fwete /

noun

  1. a step in ballet in which the dancer stands on one foot and makes a whiplike movement with the other

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of fouetté

1820–30; < French, past participle of fouetter to whip


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Whirling through her whipping fouetté turns as the predatory Odile in the third act, could she have kept spinning till spring?

From Washington Post ● Feb. 10, 2022

In Eliot’s book, Mr. Mistoffelees is a precious creation; in the musical, he is a gay icon, bedazzled like the night sky, sometimes pulling off twenty-four fouetté turns in a row.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 16, 2019

Arabesque, fouetté turn, soulful liquid melt to the mat with her arms outstretched.

From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2018

And the famous feat of fouetté turns by the dozen gave her even less trouble than they had Ms. Fairchild.

From New York Times ● Sep. 28, 2017

But given his skill and my incompetence, this was like a ballerina demonstrating a fouetté for a toddler with a broken leg.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 17, 2017

Meaning was found in Siegfried’s impetuous leap and the Black Swan’s studied 32 fouettés.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2025

But she was less secure as the man-hungry doppelganger Odile in the ballet's third act, faltering on her fouettés and finally abandoning those whipping turns prematurely.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 12, 2019

Back then, watching Svetlana Khorkina was “like seeing a giraffe perfectly execute the 32 fouettés in Swan Lake.”

From Slate ● Aug. 15, 2016

The effect — material doing fouettés and chassés around the body — was.

From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2016

As Odile, Osipova is on more familiar ground, cutting loose with a display of minxy mischief culminating in fouettés of eye-popping speed and virtuosity.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 13, 2012

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Just like flashcards, but way more fun

Don't take our word for it. Leave the boring studying behind and join VocabTrainer today. You'll learn even faster and never look back.

Take me to Vocabulary.com