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Minuet   Listen
noun
Minuet  n.  
1.
A slow graceful dance consisting of a coupee, a high step, and a balance.
2.
(Mus.) A tune or air to regulate the movements of the dance so called; a movement in suites, sonatas, symphonies, etc., having the dance form, and commonly in 3-4, sometimes 3-8, measure.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Minuet" Quotes from Famous Books



... unjust that it not only aroused the Raritans, but all neighboring tribes, and they prepared for war. The hitherto peaceful Raritans killed the whites whenever they found them alone in the forest. Fifteen years before some of Minuet's men murdered an Indian belonging to a tribe seated beyond the Harlem River. His nephew, then a boy, who saw the outrage and made a vow of vengeance, had now grown to be a lusty man. He executed his vow by ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... Atalanta. Three more new operas were ready, or nearly so; Handel seems to have prepared himself for the winter in better time than usual. But neither Arminio (January 12, 1737), nor Giustino (February 16), nor even Berenice, with its famous minuet (May 18), could save Handel from ruin. The rival opera-house was in no better case. Handel was obliged to close Covent Garden on June 1, and the Haymarket followed suit ten days later. Opera at both houses had been killed, mainly by the folly of ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent

... quizzing the Chamberlain. "See that you give me fair warning, and I'll practise the accustomed and essential reel. Upon my soul, I haven't danced since Lady Mary left, unless you call it so that foolish minuet. You should have seen her Grace at St. James's last month. Gad! she footed it like an angel; there's not a better dancer in London town. See that your wife's a dancer, whoever she may be, Sim; let her dance and sing and play the harpsichord or the clarsach—they ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... approached her partner, with the rosy, laughing face of a plump little fairy, and taking her skirt in her two fingers as if to suggest a minuet. "Ballir... dantsir... very choli..." remarked the good lady. Was this a memory that she evoked, or a temptation that she offered? At any rate, as she did not let go of him, Tartarin, to escape her pertinacity, went up on deck, preferring to be soaked to the skin rather ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... glided into harmony with that tragical undertone, and, with seemingly a perfect unconsciousness of it—whether prattling to the old nurse, or moving, sweetly grave and softly demure, through the stately figures of the minuet—was already marked off from among the living, already overshadowed by a terrible fate, already alone in the bleak loneliness of the broken heart. Striking the keynote thus, the rest followed in easy sequence. The ecstasy of the wooing scene, the agony of the ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... flattery. When Mons. L'Allonge assured me, that I thrust quart over arm better than any man in England, what could I less than present him with a sword that cost me thirty pieces? I was bound for a hundred pounds for Tom Trippet, because he had declared that he would dance a minuet with any man in the three kingdoms except myself. But I often parted with money against my inclination, either because I wanted the resolution to refuse, or dreaded the appellation of a niggardly fellow; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... to part with the new silk purse which my mother had netted for me, and in which she and father had each placed a guinea—coins not too plentiful in our country vicarage in those days. And suppose the highwayman was not satisfied with mere robbery, but should oblige me to alight and dance a minuet with him on the heath, as did Claud Duval; suppose—here my nervous fears took a fresh turn, for the cloaked lady opposite began to move restlessly, and the man, half waking, gave her a brisk nudge with his elbow ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... Sermons, whose writers played such dangerous tricks Their own heresiarchs called them heretics, (Strange that one term such distant poles should link, The Priestleyan's copper and the Puseyan's zinc); Poems that shuffle with superfluous legs A blindfold minuet over addled eggs, Where all the syllables that end in ed, Like old dragoons, have cuts across the head; Essays so dark Champollion might despair To guess what mummy of a thought was there, Where our ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... gentleman, the express image of that rascal Wilson, went up to ask her to dance a minuet; and his sudden appearance shocked her so much, that she fainted away — I call Wilson a rascal, because, if he had been really a gentleman, with honourable intentions, he would have, ere now, appeared in his own character — I must own, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... concluded his minuet of horror. He wheeled about and faced the freckled man. He elaborately folded ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... says she, "and was taking advantage of my chances. Grumkow came up, and interrupted me in the middle of a minuet: 'EH, MON DIEU MADAME!' said Grumkow, 'you seem to have got bit by the tarantula! Don't you see those strangers who have just come in?' I stopt short; and looking all round, I noticed at last a young man dressed in gray, whom I did not know. 'Go, then, embrace the Priuce-Royal; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... are all to pick cherries for to-night's feast. By the way, will you be my partner in the minuet? You dance ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... the logs they were to saw. There a girl sat sleeping. Could it be Femke? The linen danced about her to the music of the wind, the shirts making graceful bows and extending their sleeves. Nightcaps, dickeys and drawers danced the minuet; stockings, skirts, collars, handkerchiefs waltzed thicker and thicker around the sleeping girl. Her curls began to flutter—a smile, a sigh, and she sprang to her feet. A ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... (poem) 597; canticle, canzonet[obs3], cantata, bravura, lay, ballad, ditty, carol, pastoral, recitative, recitativo[obs3], solfeggio[obs3]. Lydian measures; slow music, slow movement; adagio &c. adv.; minuet; siren strains, soft music, lullaby; dump; dirge &c. (lament) 839; pibroch[obs3]; martial music, march; dance music; waltz &c. (dance) 840. solo, duet, duo, trio; quartet, quartett[obs3]; septett[obs3]; part song, descant, glee, madrigal, catch, round, chorus, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a measure stately, Languid, slow, serene; All the dancers move sedately, Stepping leisurely and straitly, With a courtly mien; Crossing hands and changing places, Bowing low between, While the minuet inlaces Waving arms and woven paces,— Glittering damaskeen. Where is she whose form is folden In its royal sheen? From our longing eyes withholden By her mystic girdle golden, Beauty sought but never seen, Music ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke

... jig with mirth than a minuet with melancholy," laughed the girl; "and yet it would take a great deal to make me miserable if I were with you, and you loved me, my dear aunt. Still, I own I like to be rich, so as to have everything ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What, tho' I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this be my poison if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes. 'Water parted'*, or the minuet in 'Ariadne'.' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... write out the different parts, and distribute them with as much assurance as though it had been a masterpiece of harmony. Then, what will scarcely be believed, but which yet is gospel truth, worthily to crown this sublime production, I tacked to the end thereof a pretty minuet which was then having a run on the streets.... I gave it as my own just as resolutely as though I had been speaking to inhabitants of ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... him but a moment's time I make no doubt he would have come instantly at the truth and the little farce would have been turned into a tragedy on the spot. But she gave him no time. The spinet in the ball-room alcove was tinkling out the overture to a minuet, and she laid the tips of her dainty fingers on the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... given again to halt, and the command "Left, wheel into line!" He heard the calls that followed—"Eyes front!" "Steady," "Quick march," "Halt, dress "—and felt, rather than saw, the whole elaborate manoeuvre; the rear ranks locking up, the covering sergeants jigging about like dancers in a minuet—pace to the rear, side step to the right—the pivot men with stiff arms extended, the companies wheeling up and dressing; all happening ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... afterward, the lovelight was only beginning to stream through. When love comes to a man at forty he is apt to play the game very badly indeed; he turns it into a very anxious business, and moves through the light-tripping measure with the pedantic dignity of a minuet dancer. But Philip Crane was not given to making mistakes; he knew that, like Crusader, "His best racing days (in the love stakes) were over"—especially where the woman was but a girl. So he sat down and planned it all out as he planned to win the Brooklyn Derby months later. And all the time ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... an Aeolian Harp To Erinna To Cleis Paris in Spring Madeira from the Sea City Vignettes By the Sea On the Death of Swinburne Triolets Vox Corporis A Ballad of Two Knights Christmas Carol The Faery Forest A Fantasy A Minuet of Mozart's Twilight The Prayer ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale

... 'seem to me not very well imagined. There is something fade, almost ridiculous, in the literary minuet in which the recipiendaire and the receiver are trotted out to show their paces to each other and to the Academy. The new member extolling the predecessor of whom he is the unworthy successor, the old member lauding his new colleague to his ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... hasten to find our hostess. They will be forming for the minuet directly, and you must dance it with me, sweet wife,—unless you prefer ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... frequently improved his opportunities of becoming the special object of Edward's boyish enmity. To fall a willing victim to the pangs of jealousy formed, however, no part of this young gentleman's intention. Returning late in the evening, he caught a glimpse of Fred and Helene dancing a stately minuet together, and, lightly securing his horse at the door, he entered the hall, just as Helene was protesting that she was too tired to dance any longer. "Just once with me," he pleaded; and their winged footsteps kept time to the tumultuous throbbing of the ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... which were perhaps more remarkable for their mirth than their decorum. There was no sort of frolic in which Goldsmith would not indulge for the amusement of his guests; he would sing them songs; he would throw his wig to the ceiling; he would dance a minuet. And then they had cards, forfeits, blind-man's-buff, until Mr. Blackstone, then engaged on his Commentaries in the rooms below, was driven nearly mad by the uproar. These parties would seem to have been of a most nondescript character—chance ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... have grown-up dances," said Dorothy, "only the two-step and minuet. I think the minuet is ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... The Minuet's cold and modish grace, Delirium of the Carmagnole, Fair France has known. How will she pace This frantic dance, and to what goal? Beginning in triumphant sport, She's tremulous now, with terror ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various

... his sister and playfellow, he speaks of this subject with as much zest as of his own art. Later in manhood he became a pupil of Vestris, and the gracefulness of his dancing was much admired, especially in the minuet. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various

... of the favorites will the king throw his handkerchief? With which of the two will he converse most? Will he feel at ease as he treads the minuet under the eyes of the devotee? Or will he venture to recognize HER ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... imagine that the great cases were swaying and dancing a minuet, and she fully expected the tomes would all come a-toppling down and smother her—and she didn't care much if they would; but they never did. She was the mother of two children—the boy Robert, born the year after her marriage; and in a little ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... and looked off through the stems, and then I saw for the first time how close they were, and that they constantly swayed and touched, and sometimes locked fast together for a second. Stately as a minuet it looked, but joyous and loving as the wildest waltz I ever danced in your arms, my darling. Oh, how dare we presume to be so sure that the flowers are not glad as we are glad! On such a day as to-day I never doubt it; and I picked one as reverently and hesitatingly as I would ask the Queen ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... pine-woods, I took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her former minuet. [Footnote: Minuet: a slow, stately dance.] Another application had the same effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the name of an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... Robert, with his face now crimson, as he too sprang to his feet, and catching up another of the filled cups. "But he shall drink it, boys, or I'll slit his miserable ears. Do you understand plain English, you minuet-dancing puppy?" ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... week of the year 1681. Lewis Mitchelbourne was young in those days, and esteemed as a gentleman of refinement and sensibility, with a queer taste for escapades, pardonable by reason of his youth. It was his pride to bear his part in the graceful tactics of a minuet, while a saddled horse waited for him at the door. He delighted to vanish of a sudden from the lighted circle of his friends into the byways where none knew him, or held him of account, not that it was all vanity with Mitchelbourne though no doubt the knowledge that his ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... month; I have dinner parties every day. You shall dine with me on the 8th, for then Lady Frederick dines with me, and she will taste you. You shall sit next to Lady Frederick, and mind you flirt with her. I wonder if you are as amusing as your grandfather. I remember dancing a minuet with him at Versailles seventy ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... member of the august family succeeded remarkably well in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still cited. At a minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivaled; and Charles, on the tightrope, was so graceful and so gentil that Madame Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. Oh, curst spite, that ever such harmless creatures as these were ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... marriage to Hope Marlowe, the only Quaker girl in Framley who had ever dared to discard the poke bonnet even for a day, and who had been publicly reproved for laughing in meeting—for Mistress Hope had a curious, albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour; she was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in grey. Hope had promptly accepted David, at the same time taunting him softly with the fact that he had recklessly declared he would never marry, even saying profanely that upon his word and honour he never would! She repeated to him ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... sunny brightness, that mocked the golden hues of even an American sun. The experience of Miss Emmerson went no further than the simple evolutions of the country dance, or the deliberate and dignified procession of the minuet. No wonder, therefore, that her faculties were bewildered by the complex movements of the cotillion: and, in short, as the good lady daily contemplated the improvements of the female youth around her, she became each hour more convinced of her ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... ceremony was performed in pantomime and the bride and groom received the congratulations of their friends. The groom bowed low over the bride's hand and led her to the center of the hall. The other couples formed in line behind them and a stately minuet was danced. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... replying, Don took Dorry's outstretched hand with nonsensical grace, and so dancing to the fireplace together, in a sort of burlesque minuet, they brought back with them two little mahogany and hair-cloth foot-benches, placing them at ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... more than I as a young man was prepared to stand. "My dear father," I answered, "what did he do? He could draw a little, but could he to save his life have got a picture into the Royal Academy exhibition? He built two organs and could play the Minuet in Samson on one and the March in Scipio on the other; he was a good carpenter and a bit of a wag; he was a good old fellow enough, but why make him out so much abler ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... could do things to the piano, a funeral-faced duck that could tell funny stories, and a bunch of six or eight likely-lookin' ladies and gents who'd laid themselves out to prance through what they called a minuet. Lastly there ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... for the promotion of civilization have engaged Mr. Tom Matthews to teach the Hottentots the minuet-de-la-Cour and tumbling. He departs with the other missionaries when the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... Already there are signs of a reaction from this reaction; of a return to the decency of other days. They tell me, for a slight but significant indication, that the waltz is coming back; that we may even look to see a revival of the, minuet and pavane." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various

... gallery high up at one end facing a raised platform, where his father and mother, looking extremely hot and uncomfortable, were seated on gorgeous chairs. A stately measure was being performed, which might have been a gavotte or minuet or pavane for anything he could say; all he knew was that the figures ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... able to dance a minuet; b certain that he is well fitted out; c contemptible; d having 3 rows of teeth; e heavy; h kind to ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll

... splendid ball at the Abbey of Holyrood-house, on the Queen's birthday, given by Colonel Graeme. I exhibited my existence in a minuet, and as I was dressed in a full chocolate suit, and wore my most solemn countenance, I looked as you used to tell me, like the fifth act of a deep Tragedy. Lord K—— danced with Miss C——, by the fire of whose eyes, his melodious lordship's heart is at present in a ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... ought to do. Twice every day she assumed the vapours. She schooled herself in the mysteries of Ombre, of Macao. She spent hours over the tambour-frame. She rode out on horse-back, with a riding-master. She had a music-master to teach her the spinet; a dancing-master, too, to teach her the Minuet and the Triumph and the Gaudy. All these accomplishments she found mighty hard. She was afraid of her horse. All the morning, she dreaded the hour when it would be brought round from the stables. She dreaded her dancing-lesson. Try as she would, she could but stamp her feet flat on the parquet, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... Schirmer copies, so there will be no difficulty in finding them. The second movement, if played in a very singing but not dragging manner, will be found enjoyable, although by no means sensational. The ideas are musical and the spirit earnest. The finale, in the tempo of a minuet, is very pleasing indeed. Here, also, the purely musical idea rules everything. The problem with the composer is to treat an idea which pleased him, and to carry it through all the changes and modifications which occurred ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews

... for three weeks and then resigned. He went back to the garret and sweet liberty—having had his taste of luxury, but miserable in it all—wondering how a gavotte or a minuet could make a man forget that he was living in a city where thirty thousand human beings were constantly only one meal beyond ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... the speed of a piston per minute? A. Double the stroke and multiply it by the number of revolutions a minuet. Thus an engine with a 12 inch stroke would travel 24 inches, or 2 feet, at a revolution. If it made 200 revolutions a minute, the travel of piston would be 400 ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard

... was caught, a beautiful slow minuet played, and a bit of "solemn dancing" done. Certainly it was not gay, but it must be owned it was beautiful; it was the dance of kings, the ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... Carolina Wilhelma Amelia Tibbs, a sweet pretty creature; I design her for my Lord Drumstick's eldest son, but that's in friendship, let it go no farther; she's but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, and plays on the guitar immensely already. I intend she shall be as perfect as possible in every accomplishment. In the first place I'll make her a scholar; I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn that language purposely to instruct her; but let ...
— English Satires • Various

... aristocratic (stage) manners. She returns his tenderness, as it is extremely natural a young person so educated and brought up would return that of a criminal, who has made an impression on her heart by shooting her servants, rifling her trunks, and forcing her to dance a minuet with him on a deserted heath under ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... penny. I already knew the route, but accepted the offer on Gavroche's promise to reveal to me a secret about the place. The secret is this: The house is haunted, and when the wind is east, and the setting moon shows only a narrow rim above the rocks, ghosts come and dance a solemn minuet on the glass roof above ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... time he is afraid that he will have to back up against a fence sometime to hide his patches from you," laughed Roxanne in such merriment that anybody with any sense of pleasant humor would have joined her at the thought of the Idol and me dancing a minuet to keep ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Paris. It often happened that a lady in the blood-stained dress of her mother danced with the son of the man who had delivered her mother to the guillotine; that a son of a member of the Convention of 1793 led, in the minuet, the graceful "pas de chale," with the daughter of an emigrant marquis. The most fanatical men of the days of terror, now exalted into wealthy land-owners, led on in the gay waltz the daughters of their ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... ladies indeed may ogle, and the gentlemen sigh; but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady directress, or intendant, or what you will, pitches on a gentleman and lady to walk a minuet; which they perform with a formality that approaches to despondence. After five or six couple have thus walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country dances; each gentleman furnished with a partner from the aforesaid lady directress; ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... clear'd on the floor, And she walk'd the Minuet de la Cour, With all the pomp of a Pompadour, But although she began andante, Conceive the faces of all the Rout, When she finished off with a whirligig bout, And the Precious Leg stuck stiffly out Like ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... through pine woods, I took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her former minuet. Another application had the same effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the name of an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her all over ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... took great pains; and, at last, you danced it like an angel. And, shall I tell you, you carry yourself very gracefully?—well, that is partly owing to the minuet. But a more learned professor will now take you in hand. He will be ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... blithely led the quadrille d'honneur, with a Robespierre for consort, to music furnished gratis by the raucous throats of ragged sans- culottes. Instead of lords and ladies treading the stately minuet in Versailles saloons adorned with beauty roses, the bare feet of hungry men beat time to the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... minutest detail. Lascars slipped by me in the half-darkness, the voices of two lovers near alternated with their expressive silences, and from the music saloon there came the pretty strains of a minuet, played very deftly. Under the influence of this music my thoughts became less exact; they drifted. My eyes shifted to the lights of the 'Porcupine' in the distance, and from them again to the figures passing and repassing me on the deck. The "All's well" of the look-out seemed to come from an ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... in this way with you for two weeks, but every day with some slight change. After a short time, I would combine with this practice the study of two or three pieces, suitably arranged for the piano; for example, Mozart's minuet in E flat, arranged by Schulhoff, and his drinking-song, or similar pieces. We will, at present, have nothing to do with Beethoven. You are, perhaps, afraid that all this might be tedious; but I have never been considered tedious in my lessons. I wish you, for the present, not to ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... and covered with skin at the end, were produced. Two little girls proceeded to belabor these primitive instruments, and made a sort of rhythmic strumming, which kept time to a monotonous chant. Two other girls executed a dance to this, which, for its slowness, might be considered an African minuet. The dancing children were bright-looking, and not ungraceful. Work stops at noon for a recess; and the mothers run from the field to visit the imprisoned babies, whom they carry to their own homes and keep till the afternoon-hour for work comes round, which it does at two P.M. We went ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... step and graceful air, In measur'd mazes, to delight the Fair. Of all the various arts, how few are known To gain an excellence in more than one. What real praises then become your due! For who can DRESS and DANCE so well as you!" She ceas'd:—In minuet step my Lord retired; To higher Entre-Chats he now aspir'd: Then, capering as he went, he hasten'd home, To plan with St——r ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe

... confusion-like. 'Don't run away, my dear,' said Signor Billsmethi, 'this is Mr. Cooper—Mr. Cooper, of Fetter-lane. Mr. Cooper, my daughter, sir—Miss Billsmethi, sir, who I hope will have the pleasure of dancing many a quadrille, minuet, gavotte, country-dance, fandango, double-hornpipe, and farinagholkajingo with you, sir. She dances them all, sir; and so shall you, sir, before you're a ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... fencing, riding the great horse, and music, came into my head: but, as they required expense and time, I comforted myself, with regard to dancing, that I had learned a little in my youth, and could walk a minuet genteelly enough; as to fencing, I thought my good-humour would preserve me from the danger of a quarrel; as to the horse, I hoped it would not be thought of; and for music, I imagined I could easily acquire the reputation of it; for I had heard some ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... acted. There was "Pattikin's House;" I am sure we had the greatest fun with those pictures, we being so many girls: and "The man all tattered and torn that married the maiden all forlorn;" that was on p. 652 of the volume for 1876: "The Minuet," in January, 1877: "Hagar in the Desert," in June, 1877; my aunty did that, and it was lovely: the little girl in "The Owl That Stared," in November, 1876; and "Leap-Year," in the same number. All these we had at our own home, but there are ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... and provinces. She had forced the Castilian pride to yield her the precedence. She had summoned Italian princes to prostrate themselves at her footstool. Her authority was supreme in all matters of good breeding, from a duel to a minuet. She determined how a gentleman's coat must be cut, how long his peruke must be, whether his heels must be high or low, and whether the lace on his hat must be broad or narrow. In literature she gave law to the world. The fame of her great writers filled Europe. No other country could ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... famous illustrations to the "Comic Almanack": La Belle Assemblee, or Sketches of Characteristic Dancing, miscellaneous groups, comprising in all thirty figures (exclusive of the orchestra), engaged in a country dance, a Scotch reel, an Irish jig, a minuet, the German waltz, a French quadrille, the Spanish bolero, and a ballet "Italienne." The walls are hung with pictures of dancing dogs, a dancing bear, a dancing horse, rope dancing, the dance of St. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... that was near dyin' of it when I was an infant; and I was the only officer in the regiment, when we were at Athlone, that was prevented going to the race ball—and I would not for a hundred pounds. I was to dance the first minuet, and the first country dance, with that beautiful creature, Miss Rose Cox. I was makin' a glass of brandy punch—not feelin' quite myself—and I dhressed and all, in our room, when Ensign Higgins, a most thoughtless young man, said something disrespectful about a beautiful mole ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... spending an hour in going through some trashy modern Italian music. "Now, my child, you shall hear something worth listening to;" and with a sigh of relief he would turn to some old piece by Mozart or Bach, some minuet of Haydn's, some romance of Beethoven's, which he would play with no great power of execution, indeed, but with a rare sweetness and delicacy of touch and expression, and with an intense absorption in the music, which communicated itself ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... chaunt, chant; psalm, psalmody; hymn; song &c (poem) 597; canticle, canzonet^, cantata, bravura, lay, ballad, ditty, carol, pastoral, recitative, recitativo^, solfeggio^. Lydian measures; slow music, slow movement; adagio &c adv.; minuet; siren strains, soft music, lullaby; dump; dirge &c (lament) 839; pibroch^; martial music, march; dance music; waltz &c (dance) 840. solo, duet, duo, trio; quartet, quartett^; septett^; part song, descant, glee, madrigal, catch, round, chorus, chorale; antiphon^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... remark, evidently disparaging, to the Queen, who receives it coldly. But at last he can't stand it any longer. "Call this dancing! I'll show 'em how to dance!" his look says. "Where's LOUISE?" And he gets up, pulls himself together, and invites her to come and dance a minuet. Queen disgusted with him, but pretends not to notice. Louis goes through minuet with extreme satisfaction to himself. Enter Page with an immense cushion, on which is "a bracelet of great value" (Argument again). Queen excited—thinks it's for her; but Louis stops the dance, takes the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various

... occasions of ceremony, black shorts and silks, with gold buckles. Remarkably upright and somewhat pompous in his gait, and abominating the free-and-easy manners of the modern school, his bow would have graced the court of Versailles, and his step was a subdued minuet. Equipped with somewhat more than his wonted care, the rev. junior bursar of Oriel was introduced into Mrs Phillips's little drawing-room, accompanying, and strongly contrasting with, three gentlemen in scarlet and gold. Hurriedly did the good old lady seize her spectacles, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... grandma, Mistress Velvetpaw, and there was your grandpa, Master Sniffwhisker,—how grave and dignified they were! Many a night have I seen them dancing upon the carpet below me, but always the stately minuet and never that crazy frisking which you are executing now, to my surprise—yes, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her to-night." ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... said old Lady Storms, "seeing the pretty thing look after him when he bowed and left her after they had danced a minuet together. Her look set me to watching her, and she gazed on him through every dance with her large heaven-blue eyes, and when at last she saw him turn and come towards her again her breast went up and down and her breath fluttered, and she turned from white to red and from red to white with ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the fair— Order and elegance presided there— Each gay Right Honourable had her place, To walk a minuet with becoming grace. No racing to the dance with rival hurry, Such was thy sway, O famed ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of art need only look at the School of Sculpture which flourished in the last century under Bernini, and especially at its further cultivation in France. This school represented commonplace nature instead of antique beauty, and the manners of a French minuet instead of antique simplicity and grace. It became bankrupt when, under Winckelmann's direction, a return was made to the antique school. Another example is supplied in the painting belonging to the first quarter of this century. ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... came back to the lovers, a reflected gleam from those fair autumn days illumined their thoughts. Mendelssohn's Minuet called up before them a vision of the villa by the sea, of rooms filled with the perfume of the terraced garden, of cypresses lifting their dark heads into the soft sky, of flaming sails ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... they were talking of the minuet, and Kenneth rose to illustrate a step and bow that he had seen ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... though but short was his Wing; He took but three leaps, and was soon out of sight, Then chirp'd his own praises the rest of the night. With step so majestic the Snail did advance, And promised the Gazers a Minuet to dance; But they all laughed so loud that he pulled in his head, And went in his own little chamber to bed. Then as Evening gave way to the shadows of Night, Their Watchman, the Glowworm, came out with a light. "Then Home let us hasten while yet we can see, For no ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... Bedchamber?" he brought out at last. "All," replied once more her Majesty. It was in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain that he spoke, growing every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the constitution, and Queens Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that he danced his pathetic minuet. She was adamant; but he, too, through all his embarrassment, showed no sign of yielding; and when at last he left her nothing had been decided—the whole formation of the Government was hanging in the wind. A frenzy ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... of the garret. After a short experience of three weeks Comte returned to neediness and contentment. He was not altogether without the young man's appetite for pleasure; yet when he was only nineteen we find him wondering, amid the gaieties of the carnival of 1817, how a gavotte or a minuet could make people forget that thirty thousand human beings around them had barely a morsel to eat. Hardship in youth has many drawbacks, but it has the immense advantage over academic ease of making the student's interest in men real, and not ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley

... of quadrilles and country dances or contredanses, the inaptitude of nine-tenths of mankind for dancing was still more eminently demonstrated in the murders of the minuet. For (as Morall, the dancing-master of Marie Antoinette, used passionately to exclaim)—que de choses dans un minuet! What worlds of modest dignity—of alternate amenity and scorn! The minuet has all the tender coquetry of the bolero, divested ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... d'Artois was learning to dance on the tight-rope; and Monsieur de Provence was cultivating l'eloquence du billet and studying his favorite Horace. It is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably well in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still cited. At a minuet or syllabub, poor Antoinette was unrivalled; and Charles, on the tight-rope, was so graceful and so gentil, that Madame Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... came down. Well, at the end of each term there was what they called an "exhibition ball," in which the scholars danced cotillons and country-dances; also something called a "gavotte," and I think one or more walked a minuet. But all this is not what—I wanted to say. At this exhibition ball he used to bring out a number of hoops wreathed with roses, of the perennial kind, by the aid of which a number of amazingly complicated and startling evolutions were exhibited; ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... card-playing. The King, the Queen and all the princes so far unbent as to play with their guests at the same tables, and move about without ceremony, conversing, listening to the music of Lully's band, watching a minuet or a gavotte, eating and drinking, or bestowing special favors upon courtiers that engaged their ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne

... Baron, were you ever at the falls of Niagara?" "Yes, my lady," replied I, surprised at such a strange association of ideas; "I have been, many years ago, at the Falls of Niagara, and found no more difficulty in swimming up and down the cataracts than I should to move a minuet." At that moment she dropped her nosegay. "Ah," said she, as I presented it to her, "there is no great variety in these polyanthuses. I do assure you, my dear Baron, that there is taste in the selection of flowers as well as everything else, and were I ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... sticks and stones; round this area the birds assemble, when a cock-bird, with vivid orange-scarlet crest and plumage, steps into it, and, with spreading wings and tail, begins a series of movements as if dancing a minuet; finally, carried away with excitement, he leaps and gyrates in the most astonishing manner, until, becoming exhausted, he retires, and ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... expect to dance first goddess; I will not dance under Miss Minuet; I am sure I shew more to the audience than any lady ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... and the bee seemed to come questioning the silence of the woods and droning disappointed away. The first excess of any sad feeling is half voluntary. Emilia could not help smiling, when she lifted her head out of a musing fit, to find that she had composed part of a minuet for the languid dancing motes in the shaft of golden light at her feet. "Can I remember it?" she thought, and forgot the incident ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Not at all. And not like Madame Anybody's finished pupils. Not the least. It was not quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor even country-dance dancing. It was neither in the old style, nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the English style: though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, I am told, deriving a delightful air of off-hand inspiration, ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... of two persons dancing a minuet, that "they looked as if they were hired to do it, and were ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... very secret and did not show them to anybody. But she heard of them from a churchman of the name of Fulgence, who haunted the castle, and swore he had seen those little creatures step out of their glass prisons and dance a minuet. And she had every reason to believe it. It is possible to doubt of what one sees, but you cannot doubt the word of an honest man, especially when he belongs to the Church. There is another misfortune ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. The Pensionary ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... slow stately dance, and the King, taking the Queen by the hand, advanced to the middle of the circle and with her stepped a minuet. When the music ceased, all the Little People clapped their hands in applause, and the King and ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo

... her children, looking up at her picture by Sully in a turban and short waist; may have wondered to hear how in such disguise she too was fatal to many hearts, and set men by the ears, and was a toast at suppers in days when the waltz was coming in and the solemn grace of the minuet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... serious authors of a generation—and Macaulay was nothing less than this—affects style coupe or style soutenu. The critic of style is not the dancing-master, declaiming on the deep ineffable things that lie in a minuet. He is not the virtuoso of supines and gerundives. The morality of style goes deeper 'than dull fools suppose.' When Comte took pains to prevent any sentence from exceeding two lines of his manuscript or five of print; ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley

... good-natured though ironical remarks on my two young friends. Not being accustomed to company, they remained confused and speechless. But the worst of all was to come. A tall young lady who had just finished a minuet came up to Armelline, dropped a curtsy, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... went to the house of Lude, where he was very cheerful, and took his share in several dances, such as minuets and Highland reels; the first reel the Prince called for was, "This is no' mine ain House;" he afterwards commanded a Strathspey minuet ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... I like the waltz better. The waltz is to the two-step what the minuet is to the jig. Don't you think so now? Young Mrs. Black is a splendid waltzer. Next to you, she is ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... on the upper octaves with an expression so beautiful, so marvelously true and singing, it made me smile inwardly. My spirits rose because of his lavish approval, which did me good. After the first movement, I asked his permission to play a solo, and chose the Minuet, from the Humoresken." ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... indeed my own Misfortunes do not make less impression on me than they ever did, yet now I never feel for those of an other. My accomplishments too, begin to fade—I can neither sing so well nor Dance so gracefully as I once did—and I have entirely forgot the MINUET DELA ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... the two men fighting, with the same casual interest, at first, which they would have bestowed on the dancing of a new movement in the minuet. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... was so seated at the piano that she could watch Patty's dance, and in a moment the two were in harmony, and Patty was gliding and bowing in a charming minuet, while Mrs. Van Reypen played in ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells

... an opera dancer be extemporized like a minister of state? I can dance the minuet, and my ear is good enough to enable me to go through a quadrille; but with the exception of that I cannot ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... and reels! ... A minuet I could have forgiven ... Zounds! had she made one in a cotillon—I believe I could have forgiven even that—but to be monkey-led for a night! to run the gauntlet through a string of amorous palming puppies ... Oh, Jack, there never can be but one man in the ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... her consort to settle nice points of etiquette and maintain a dignity befitting His Majesty's chosen representative. How did the seigneurs rank among themselves and with the leading English-speaking people? Who were to dance in the state minuet? Should dancing cease when the bishops came in, and for how long? Was that curtsy dropped quite low enough to her viceregal self, and did that debutante offer her blushing cheek in quite the proper way to Carleton when he graciously ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... shall,' he says, 'not write any operas, or arias, or symphonies, but only great sonatas for her instrument and mine!' I gave her her fourth lesson today, and so far as the rules of composition and her exercises are concerned I am pretty well satisfied with her. She wrote a very good bass to the first minuet which I set her, and has already begun to write in three parts. It goes, but she gets bored too quickly. I can not help her; progress is impossible, she is too young even if she had talent. Unfortunately she has none; she must be taught artificially; she has no ideas, there are no results, ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel

... inexplicable dumb show of the Wood Daemon (that diphthong is my delight), the Castle Spectre, &c. &c. The Bleeding Nun in Raymond and Agnes is ushered in with a pre-scent-iment of blue flame and brimstone. Angela's mother advances in a minuet step, to soft music, like Goldsmith's bear, and is absolutely enveloped in flames—none but a salamander, or Messrs. Shadrach and company can enact the part with safety. But when we are presented with a dead Hamlet, Banquo, or lady Anne, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... ardent girls and boys Who find no genius in a mind so clear 270 That its grave depths seem obvious and near, Nor a soul great that made so little noise. They feel no force in that calm-cadenced phrase, The habitual full-dress of his well-bred mind, That seems to pace the minuet's courtly maze And tell of ampler leisures, roomier length of days, His firm-based brain, to self so little kind That no tumultuary blood could blind, Formed to control men, not amaze, Looms not like those that borrow height of haze: 280 It was ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... most pathetic of all writers are, to my mind, those whose mastery of their art grows as the initial impulse declines. But my young friend appeared to me to value only prodigal and fantastic vigour, and to prefer the sword-dance to the minuet. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... deservedly popular little works in the modern repertory is the Paderewski "Minuet," Op. 14, No. 1. Modern minuets are echoes of the classical period. Compositions of this kind are to be found in the sonatas and symphonies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and even further back in the suites of Bach. Accordingly the Paderewski "Minuet," in ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... was standing with Madame Max Goesler in the cloak-room. "After all, we are surely the most awkward people in the world," she said. "You know Lord Fawn, who was talking to Miss Effingham just now. You should have heard him trying to pay me a compliment before dinner. It was like a donkey walking a minuet, and yet they say he is a clever man and can make speeches." Could it be possible that Madame Max Goesler's ears were so sharp that she had heard the things which Lord Fawn had ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... sound of Tony's retreating motor; his strategic movement has come off. And now give me some news, if you can get in a word. Dear me, there is Robert coming back across the lawn. What a mercy that Tony did not leave the motor. Robert always walks as if he was dancing a minuet. Look, there is Og imitating him! Or is he stalking him, thinking he is an ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... Forest, with its suggestion of fays and fairies and moonlight (a scene, by the way, for which Verdi has found entrancing tones, yet without reaching the lovely grace of Nicolai), owes much of its beauty to a minuet measure quite in the manner of the olden time, but which is, after all, only an accompaniment to the declamation which it sweetens. The finales of "Falstaff" have been built up with all of Verdi's oldtime skill, and sometimes ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... with his Court is rolling towards Choisy, through the summer afternoon: the royal tears still flow; but a word mispronounced by Monseigneur d'Artois sets them all laughing, and they weep no more. Light mortals, how ye walk your light life-minuet, over bottomless abysses, divided from ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... pantomimic presentation of the whole story from the first tender awaking of a sweet desire through the warmer and warmer courtship to the raptures of sensual delight. Civilized society has more or less covered the naked passion, but from the graceful play of the minuet to the graceless movements of the turkey trot the sensual, not to say the sexual, element can easily be recognized by the sociologist. Here again cause and effect move in a circle. Love excitement expresses itself in dance, and the dance heightens ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg



Words linked to "Minuet" :   ballroom dance



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