dance card

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See also: dancecard, and dance-card

English

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WOTD – 20 August 2021

Etymology

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The front of a dance card (sense 1) for the Grand Centennial Military and Civic Ball held on 19 April 1875 in the Agricultural Hall at Concord, Massachusetts, USA.
A 1912 dance card (sense 1) for a dinner-dance held at the Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas, USA.[n 1]

From dance +‎ card (“flat, normally rectangular piece of stiff paper, etc.; list of scheduled events, etc.”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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dance card (plural dance cards)

  1. (dance, dated) A card on which a person (usually a woman) lists those they have agreed to dance with. [from late 19th c.]
    How could your dance card be full already, Martha? You just got here.
    • 1886 December, “Advertisements”, in Amherst Literary Monthly, volume I, number 6, Amherst, Mass.: Senior Class at Amherst College, →OCLC:
      […] A. E. Chasmar & Co, Art Stationers and Engravers, 734 Broadway, N.Y. Makers of Fine Engraved work, Artistic Menus, Dance Cards and Souverniers.[sic – meaning Souvenirs] One of our specialties is the Exact Reproduction of Jeweled Society Pins on Menus, Dance Cards, etc.
    • 1893, Sara Jeannette Duncan, chapter XII, in The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 142:
      [A]t the Belvedere dance on Friday he came and implored me to tell him what colour Lady Blebbins was wearing. It was hyacinth and daffodil faille—the simplest thing, but he was awfully at a loss, poor fellow! And afterwards I saw him put it down on the back of his dance-card.
    • 1895 February, Walter Camp, “A Junior Promenade”, in James H. Worman, editor, Outing: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Sport, Travel and Recreation, volume XXV, number 5, New York, N.Y., London: The Outing Company, →OCLC, page 399:
      Another peculiar custom of the promenade is the way in which a young woman's dance card is filled up. When a young man invites a young woman to the Junior Promenade he usually does it some months beforehand. As soon as it is settled that she is to come he makes plans for her pleasure by securing for her agreeable partners. In order to facilitate this, preliminary dance cards are issued, and for several weeks before the promenade men are busy in exchanging dances with one another. Thus the young woman's card is entirely filled long before she and her chaperon set foot in New Haven.
    • 1895, Jesse Lynch Williams, “When Girls Come to Princeton”, in Princeton Stories, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, pages 200–201:
      But all that you are sure of is that your escort offers you his arm with a smile and a stiff bow, that you walk nervously up the winding stairs, step into a dazzle of light, where members of the dance committee are running hither and thither with dance-cards and girls, and where patronesses are smiling, bowing, looking stately, holding their fans, and doing whatever patronesses usually do.
    • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], pages 10 and 423:
      [[Episode 1: Telemachus], page 10] Her secrets: old feather fans, tassled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. […] [page 423] In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.
    • 1925 September 19, Maude Parker Child, “Romance”, in George Horace Lorimer, editor, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 198, number 12, Philadelphia, Pa., London: Curtis Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 93, column 2:
      When he asked her about her trip and she showed him, among other souvenirs, her dance card with the initials of the prince on it three times, he had seemed quite pleased.
    • 1935, Howard Lindsay, She Loves Me Not: A Comedy in Two Acts Dramatized from Edward Hope’s Novel, French’s Standard Library edition, New York, N.Y., Los Angeles, Calif., London: Samuel French, →OCLC, act I, scene ii, page 11:
      Above the bureau is a wall-mirror with various invitations, dance cards and other memorabilia stuck into the edge of the frame.
    • 2007, Karina Bliss, chapter 2, in Mr. Irresistible (Mills & Boon Vintage Super Romance), Richmond [London]: Silhouette, published 2008, →ISBN:
      “About that dance …” / Remembering her promise to Peter, Kate said nicely, “Don’t tell me your dance card’s empty. I won’t believe it.” / “I had a cancellation.” / “Then a little rest will do you good.”
    • 2016, Rosy Hugener, with Carl Hugener, “Cenotes”, in Xtabentum: A Novel of Yucatan, Shared Pen edition, [Lincolnshire, Ill.]: Rosa Hugener with Carl Hugener, →ISBN, page 78:
      Our hostess' memorabilia included several of the little dancecards that girls of that time used at parties to dance with boys. All the songs that the band was planning to play were listed, each with a blank line next to it that the dancers needed to fill in to share a song. Many of the songs were scratched out, which our hostess explained meant that the girl was reserving those songs for her favorite boy of the evening.
  2. (figuratively)
    1. An appointment schedule.
      My dance card is full this week. What about meeting next week?
    2. A list of items.
      • 2009 August 21, “‘Inglourious Basterds’ director Quentin Tarantino picks his favorite WWII movies”, in Pioneer Press‎[4], St. Paul, Minn.: Northwest Publications, published 13 November 2015, →ISSN, archived from the original on 31 May 2021:
        [Quentin] Tarantino went on: "I never follow the normal dance card that the genre or the subgenres I deal in usually play by. […] I want it to become something bigger and more expansive than that given subgenre."
      • 2018 November 29, Rebecca Stevenson, “Huawei for Dummies: China’s Tech Company and Why It’s been Banned by Our Spies”, in Stuff‎[5], archived from the original on 12 November 2020:
        [T]he dance card of companies spying on you while you are online is chocker already.
      • 2019 April 28, Alex McLevy, “Game Of Thrones Suffers the Fog of War in the Battle against the Dead (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎[6], archived from the original on 31 May 2021:
        And yet, given how the carnage unfolded, a surprising number of named characters survived. There are still a few unknowns, but the survey of who was left standing as the episode drew to a close was an awfully full dance card.

Alternative forms

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Translations

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Notes

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  1. ^ From Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries, Houston, Texas, USA.

Further reading

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