thé dansant

American  

[tey dahn-sahn] / teɪ dɑ̃ˈsɑ̃ /

noun

French.

plural

thés dansants

1. a tea dance.

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thé dansant British  

/ te dɑ̃sɑ̃ /

noun

1. a dance held while afternoon tea is served, popular in the 1920s and 1930s

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Etymology

Origin of thé dansant

literally: dancing tea

Example Sentences

There were dresses for a thé dansant, dainty and frosted, in a macaron palette.

From The New Yorker

She provided the texts for a series of her brother’s vocal and choral works starting in the 1980s, including a surreally retro setting of her three-poem sequence “A History of the Thé Dansant,” inspired by photographs of their parents from the 1920s.

From New York Times

She captured the brainy nostalgia of Richard Rodney Bennett’s surreally retro “History of the Thé Dansant,” but best of all were the Gurney songs — “Sleep” followed “Bierside” — performed with moving nobility.

From New York Times

Indeed, the only other thing he recalled quite distinctly was saying goodbye to her at an afternoon thé dansant in a Brighton hotel.

From The Guardian

Saigon's Cercle Sportif bubbled with the dansant in the hot evenings.

From Time Magazine Archive