ˈfox-trot, n.
1. A pace with short steps, as in changing from trotting to walking.
| 1872 F. M. A. Roe Army Lett. (1909) 70 He has a fox trot, which is wonderfully easy. 1888 Century Mag. Oct. XXXVI. 897 She heard a horse approaching at a *fox-trot. 1894 R. Kipling Day's Work (1898) 58 Would you consider a fox-trot, an' single-foot, an' rack, an' pace, an' amble, distinctions not worth distinguishin'? 1946 M. C. Self Horseman's Encycl. 134 Fox trot, a slow, shuffling trot, the fox-trot is one of the gaits permitted in a five-gaited saddler as a ‘slow-gait’. |
2. A modern dance, of American origin, consisting chiefly of alternating measures of long and short steps; also, a piece of music suitable as an accompaniment for the fox-trot.
| 1915 Truth 17 Mar. 1/5 A new dance, the ‘Fox-trot’, a relation of..‘Ragtime’. 1915 Victor Record Catal. May, Dance records... Fox trots. 1917 S. B. Leacock Frenzied Fiction (1919) v. 70 The others were dancing the fox-trot to the victrola on the piazza. 1919 G. D'Egville How & what to Dance (1922) 55 The Fox-Trot is a dance of many steps, and to the casual observer everybody seems to have different ones. 1919 E. Scott All about Latest Dances 68 The true basis of the American Fox-Trot is an alternation of four slow and four or eight quick movements, depending on the step chosen. 1923 ― A.B.C. of Dancing 84 The foxtrot is not a dance in the sense that the waltz and polka are dances because it has no distinctive rhythm and no characteristic step or figure. 1928 Melody Maker Feb. 127/1 You have just heard a fox-trot, ‘I call her honey because she sticks to me’. 1946 R. Capell Simiomata ii. 48 Kirou remembers Macaskie singing foxtrots. |
Hence ˈfox-trot v. intr., to dance a fox-trot; ˈfox-trotter, one who fox-trots; ˈfox-trotting vbl. n.
| 1916 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 11 July 3/7 Such [folk] dances should not be classed with fox-trotting, bunny-hugging, Wilson gliding, [etc.]. 1919 Punch 26 Feb. 166/2 I've fox-trotted in Stranraer, Irish-jigged in Mullingar. 1919 E. Scott All about Latest Dances 72 Some fox-trotters spin round at intervals on the soles of their feet. 1923 R. D. Paine Comrades of Rolling Ocean v. 75 A dozen couples..fox-trotted in a clear space of the forward deck. 1928 F. N. Hart Bellamy Trial i. 18 He seems to have spent most of his time perfecting his golf game and his fox-trotting abilities. 1967 V. Nabokov Speak, Memory (ed. 2) xiii. 254 On the Cunard liner Pannonia which left Greece on May 18, 1919..I learned to foxtrot. |