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Synonyms

trip the light fantastic

Idioms  

  1. Dance, as in Let's go out tonight and trip the light fantastic. This expression was originated by John Milton in L'Allegro (1632): “Come and trip it as ye go, On the light fantastick toe.” The idiom uses trip in the sense of “a light, tripping step,” and although fantastick was never the name of any particular dance, it survived and was given revived currency in James W. Blake's immensely popular song, The Sidewalks of New York (1894).

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.

Later that evening, the newlyweds will trip the light fantastic at Frogmore House alongside 200 of their closest friends.

From BBC • May 7, 2018

Even if you have more in common with a wooden nutcracker than a sugarplum fairy, you can still trip the light fantastic — emphasis on tripping — during a drop-in lesson at Ballet Fantastique .

From Washington Post • Nov. 8, 2017

Ulster, expected to play a territorial kicking game, seemed intent on showing it was not just Leinster who could trip the light fantastic.

From BBC • May 19, 2012

There is no end of wire-pulling to be clone if daughter is to trip the light fantastic at the Autumn Ball, up in Tuxedo Park, the Junior Assemblies, etc.

From Time Magazine Archive

After dinner, the deck is illuminated with coloured electric bulbs, the band plays, and the people "trip the light fantastic toe," as country papers put it.

From Ship-Bored by Street, Julian

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.