square dance
noun
a dance by a set of four couples arranged in a square or in some set form.
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square dance
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square-dance
square-danceverb (used without object)to perform or participate in a square dance.
square dance
1 American
square-dance
2
American
[skwair-dans, -dahns]
/ ˈskwɛərˌdæns, -ˌdɑns /
verb (used without object)
square-danced,
square-dancing
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to perform or participate in a square dance.
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to participate in a hoedown.
square dance
British
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of square dance1
First recorded in 1865–70
Origin of square-dance2
First recorded in 1955–60
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:
The process is somewhat like partners changing places during a square dance.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
You are doing a square dance with your children and the two-step with Uncle Sam.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 19, 2026
Then he led a large group in the “casino circle,” a sort of Latin square dance that originated in Havana in the 1950s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2026
This year’s routine involved two catchers and, during the finale, a spangled foursome seems to square dance midair.
From New York Times ● Nov. 15, 2018
Behind me the radio plays square dance music from the Maritimes, Don Messer and His Islanders, in preparation for the six o’clock news.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
And, of course, Kildunne, who hushed France captain Marine Menager after a second-half scuffle, threw up a lasso as part of her usual square-dance celebration after her tries.
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2025
Karen Reichardt, who is a maker of square-dance clothes, and on the board of the Heritage Center — a one-room square-dance museum — in Spokane, echoes the sentiment: “Square dancing is friendship set to music.”
From Seattle Times ● May 27, 2022
She remembers a boy recoiling at first when he was assigned to square-dance with her but remembers he — and they — proceeded.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 24, 2020
Raleigh, the Western square-dance caller, had trouble finding someone to teach him to yodel while growing up in Dayton - so he taught himself using recordings.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 7, 2015
I know how to square-dance, and I'm good at it.
From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper
They square-danced, did the jitterbug and the twist, skipped rope, and rode on a high wire.
From BusinessWeek ● Oct. 10, 2013
"So we square-danced for 33 years, fished for 25 years, and traveled for 25 years in our RV," she said.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 30, 2011
Onstage, Cabinet officers, military brass, Congressmen and local society bigwigs wisecracked, caterwauled, sawed away on their fiddles, square-danced, and performed a frantic Charleston, complete with short skirts and rolled stockings.
From Time Magazine Archive
The older ones square-danced in the middle of the hall and we younger ones waltzed and polkaed in a long line down the outside ring.
From Land of the Burnt Thigh by Stephen J. Voorhies
There was clogging, stomping and flatfoot dancing; the Dutch and English square-dancing with the Africans and the Irish.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 26, 2021
After the skies turned overcast, she suggested they attend a square-dancing class.
From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2016
Ford’s Amazonian experiment crumbled into ruins as employees balked at some of his rules, which included serving only American food and compulsory square-dancing.
From Economist ● Apr. 27, 2016
After the war, she dated a man named Rex Smith, I think, who would pick her up for their square-dancing club wearing cowboy duds.
From Salon ● Feb. 27, 2013
It was like square-dancing on Hee Haw, except with mostly girls running around from group to group calling out the allemande lefts and dos-si-dos.
From "P.S. Be Eleven" by Rita Williams-Garcia
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
