Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see bobbin jo n.

to have sexual intercourse; also as a n.; in cit. 1672–94 the context is ambivalent: the phr. may only apply to an actual dance.

see blanket hornpipe under blanket n.

see goat’s jig under goat n.¹

to have sexual intercourse; also as a n.

1577		Misogonus in Farmer (1906) II iv: cac.: The vicar of St. Fools, I am sure, he would brave: To that daunce of all other I see he is bent. sir john: Faith, no! I had rather have Shaking o’ th’ sheets [...] or Catching of quails.
1589		Lyly Pappe with an Hatchet E: O tis his best daunce next shaking of the sheetes.
1600		Dekker Shoemakers’ Holiday V v: I danc’d the shaking of the sheetes with her six and thirtie yeares ago.
1602		J. Cooke How A Man May Choose A Good Wife From A Bad Act II: Now come lets dance the shaking of the sheets.
1631		J. Shirley School of Complement III i: I thought of nothing but dancing the shaking of the sheets with my sweet-heart.
1632		Massinger City-Madam II i: The shaking of the sheets, which I have danc’d Again, and again with my Cockatrice.
1654		E. Gayton Pleasant Notes III vii 25: He knew not what a dance the Don would lead him, before he return’d to the shaking of the sheets, with his Joan Gutierez.
1659		Mercurius Democritus 3-10 Aug. 91: Poor Tom is hopeless of enjoying the pleasure of sheet-shaking.
c.1672		‘West-Country Jigg’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 344: The piper he struck up, and merrily he did play, / The shakeing of the sheets, and eke the Irish hay.
1700		N. Ward London Spy XV 356: Some Labouring Drudge with Twenty pounds he meets, / Who longs to dance the Shaking of the Sheets.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 89: Danser. To copulate; ‘to dance to the time of the shaking of the sheets’.
1925		E. Field ‘A French Crisis’ in Facetiae Americana 19: She’d dance the ‘Shaking of the Sheets,’ fa-doodle, wap and shag.

see under Beilby’s ball n.

to be hanged.

see under tuck ’em fair n.

to have sexual intercourse; thus dancing of the ropes, an act of sexual intercourse; rope-dancer n., a person who engages in such an act.

1632		Massinger City-Madam III i: You would have me foot it To the Dancing of the Ropes, sit a whole afternoon there.
1655		‘Du Parc’ (trans.) Comical Hist. of Francion n.p.: If any of them chanc’d to be made dance ith’ rope, they thought him happy to be so freed of the care and trouble attends the miserable indigent [N].
1773		Foote Bankrupt III i: Writers in Journals, like rope-dancers, to engage the public attention, must venture their necks every step they take.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 312: My mind won’t be easy [...] till I see him dancing upon the invisible tight-rope at Tyburn.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 65: dance on a rope To be hanged.

(UK und.) to be hanged.

1874

Cairo Bull. (Cairo, IL) 5 Nov. 2/3: [from The Graphic, London] I’ve been inclined to make a change / Since Jerry hopped the twig, / And sang his dismal ditty, boys, / And danced old boss’s jig.

to hang; also as n. dance in the air.

c.1791		Kilmainham Minit in Walsh Ireland Sixty Years Ago (1885) 88: De Clargy stept down from his Side, / And de Dust-cart from under him floated, / And left him to Dance on de Air.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 116: I shall drink no more, for my eyes already begin to dance in the air; and if I listen longer to your resistless eloquence, my feet may share the same fate!
1840		G.W.M. Reynolds (trans.) V. Hugo Last Day of Condemned 39: He swore he’d make me dance on air, / To please the folks at Tuck-up fair.
1878		Dly Globe (St Paul, MN) 2 Feb. 1/5: Dancing On Air. A Quiet hanging Affair at St Louis [...] A.T. Lawrence [...] was hung in the jail-yard.
1893		K. Mackay Out Back 191: Let there be no bungle. A mistake now may mean a dance in the air for all of us.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Oct. 12/4: There died recently in Maoriland a man who, 49 long years ago, was ordered by a Judge to dance on the air or to climb a tree by his neck.
1934		J.M. Cain Postman Always Rings Twice (1985) 173: It don’t cost me a thing to make you dance on air. And that’s what you’re going to do. Dance, dance, dance.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 119: Guy Browne had left the penal station with the vowed intention of ‘dancing on’ [...] rather than return to it.

to hang; also as n., a judicial hanging.

1775		Gentleman’s Mthly Intelligencer Aug. 409/1: Another swore roundly, that I had turned well to windward, and left death and the devil to leeward; and a third more vociferously exclaimed, I was born to dance upon nothing.
1796		Sporting Mag. Oct. IX 48/1: It will be lucky for these galloping heroes, if they escape a gallop or dance upon nothing, before the Debtor’s door of Newgate.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: An old fancy chaunt ends every verse thus:– ‘For we are the boys of the Holy Ground / And we’ll dance upon nothing and turn us round.’.
1833		Satirist (London) 6 Jan. 428/3: ‘[E]ven that of Saint Vitus’ is preferable to a dance upon nothing!’.
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 350: Serve me so again, and us two’ll dance upon nothing in less than six weeks arterwards.
1840		T. Hood ‘Miss Kilmansegg & Her Precious Leg’ Poems (1846) I 177: The felon condemned to die [...] elopes / To caper on sunny greens and slopes / Instead of the dance upon nothing.
[1852		Bell’s Life in Sydney 3 July 3/3: If he was John Ketch, he hoped he would have the pleasure of [...] giving him the opportunity of dancing upon nothing.
1864		London Dly News 2 Dec. 2/2: Another synonym for being hanged is dancing on a nothing in a hempen cravat.
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 158: Any man found guilty of treason ought to be talked to by a preacher right under a gallows, and then be allowed to stand on nothing for a few hours.
1874		M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 378: You shall dance now, Tomkins. You’ll dance upon nothing one day, Tomkins!
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 June 22/1: But with the terrible scene our correspondent has witnessed apparently breaking in upon him when he wrote he exclaims, ‘If I have to dance on nothing some day, surely I can claim that the last person I shall see have the face of a man, or at least the nose of a man!’.
1894		Burnley Exp. 8 Aug. 4/8: Other phrases now almost [...] obsolete were ‘to dance upon nothing’ [...] to walk up Ladder-lane and down Hemp-street’.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 14 Apr. 5/3: He loved to see men dangle, / And he liked to see them strangle, / Kick their heels upon nothing while suspended from a beam.
1905		Marvel III:58 17: They’ll never rest till they find out what became of him and his murderer is dancing on nothin’ to the tune of a tolling bell.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 29/1: Dance on nothing, lynching.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 139/2: dance on nothing To be hanged. Obs.

see Paddington (frisk) under Paddington n.

to hang; also as n., a judicial hanging.

1796		Sporting Mag. Oct. IX 48/1: It will be lucky for these galloping heroes, if they escape a gallop or dance upon nothing, before the Debtor’s door of Newgate.
1802		Sporting Mag. Sept. XX 323/2: Do these vain people never think of the poor creatures that dance upon nothing?
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: An old fancy chaunt ends every verse thus:– ‘For we are the boys of the Holy Ground / And we’ll dance upon nothing and turn us round.’.
1833		S. Smith Major Downing (1834) 174: Shooting is too good for him. He must dance upon nothing with a rope round his neck.
1840		T. Hood ‘Miss Kilmansegg & Her Precious Leg’ Poems I (1846) n.p.: The felon condemned to die [...] elopes / To a caper on sunny greens and slopes Instead of the dance upon nothing.
1864		Daily News 2 Dec. n.p.: Another synonym for being hanged is dancing on a nothing in a hempen cravat [F&H].
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 158: Any man found guilty of treason ought to be talked to by a preacher right under a gallows, and then be allowed to stand on nothing for a few hours.
1874		H. Mayhew London Characters 347: Nor is the phrase ‘to die dancing on nothing’ a very commiserate figure of speech.
1874		M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 378: You shall dance now, Tomkins. You’ll dance upon nothing one day, Tomkins!
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 June 22/1: But with the terrible scene our correspondent has witnessed apparently breaking in upon him when he wrote he exclaims, ‘If I have to dance on nothing some day, surely I can claim that the last person I shall see have the face of a man, or at least the nose of a man!’.
1905		Marvel III:58 17: They’ll never rest till they find out what became of him and his murderer is dancing on nothin’ to the tune of a tolling bell.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 29/1: Dance on nothing, lynching.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 139/2: dance on nothing To be hanged. Obs.

(N.Z.) to express one’s pleasure.

1941		Baker N.Z. Sl.
1946		P.L. Soljak N.Z. 116: New Zealand colloquialisms which are of Maori origin include: [...] dance a haka: to celebrate.
1955		B.J. Cameron Collection (TS July) n.p.: haka do a haka (v) To express glee [DNZE].

(Aus. und.) for a sneak-thief to rob hotel rooms.

1867

Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 Apr. 6/4: it is quite common for a well-dressed thief to take apartments in an hotel and ‘barber’ all the inmates; in other words, to get up in the night, visit all the rooms, and steal as much as possible. This, in technical language, is called ‘Dancing a lunching-drum’ .

of an older sister, to be left unmarried when a younger sister has already found a husband.

1864		J.F. Brobst letter in Brobst Well Mary, Civil War Letters 98: I must write to my sister today. She has got married and is laughing at me because I have to dance in the pig trough.
1942		F. Warnick Dialect of Garrett County, Maryland 6: Dance in the hog trough, v.phr., when a younger sister or brother married before an older one, the latter was said to have to ‘dance in the hog trough’ [DA].

(US black) to scheme, to deceive.

1994

C. Major Juba to Jive.

1. to hit in the face.

1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 105: A number of terms for fighting warn the opponent [...] just where he can expect a fist or knuckle to fall – go upside one’s head, get in one’s eye, dance on one’s lips.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 48: They danced on me a little. It’s no big deal.

2. to kick in the face.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 234: dance on (one’s) lips [...] 2. Kick in the face.

1. to deceive, to ‘mess around’.

1974

G.V. Higgins Cogan’s Trade (1975) 59: I got absolutely no reason, think the guy’s dancing me around.

2. to harass, to pressurize.

1986

C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 92: I thought you were thirsty. Now you want to dance some niggers around?

see chocolate cha-cha under chocolate adj.

see sense 3 above.