Word.ws English Dictionary

cotillion

UK/kəʊtɪlˈjɒ̃//koʊtɪlˈjɑ̃/

cotillion noun: a bold dance performed in groups of eight where women lift their skirts to display their ankles. Also the ellipsis of cotillion ball.

cotillion: a bold dance performed in groups of eight where women lift their skirts to display their ankles
Image: Gryffindor, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cotillion (plural cotillions)

  1. A bold dance performed in groups of eight where women lift their skirts to display their ankles.
    • Mrs. Hughes now joined them, and asked Miss Tilney if she was ready to go. "I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again soon," said Catherine. "Shall you be at the cotillion ball tomorrow?"1803 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter X, in Northanger Abbey; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Murray, […], 20 December...
    • The second figure [of the dance] commenced, and I made a sad bungle; so I did of the third, and fourth, and fifth, for I never had danced a cotillon.1833, [Frederick Marryat], chapter XII, in Peter Simple. […], volume II, London: Saunders and Otley, […], published 1834, →OCLC, page 200
  2. The music regulating the cotillion.
    • 1848 I kept a parlor open for the reception of visitors, many came here to practise with me, and many more to listen to us—several young men put themselves under my tuition, and although I had never been taught myself, they progressed finely in their studies and I soon brought out, not only the...
  3. A kind of woollen material for women's skirts.

Verb

cotillion (third-person singular simple present cotillions, present participle cotillioning, simple past and past participle cotillioned)

  1. (intransitive, rare) To dance the cotillion.

Also used as

cotillion is also the ellipsis of cotillion ball.

cotillion meaning in Tagalog and Vietnamese

cotillion in Tagalog

bold dance
kotilyon

cotillion in Vietnamese

bold dance
côticông

Forms of cotillion

Noun
pluralcotillions
alternative formcotillon
Verb
third-person singular presentcotillions
present participlecotillioning
past participlecotillioned
pastcotillioned

Origin of cotillion

First use appears c. 1750, in the sense of the dance, from French cotillon (“petticoat”), extended to the dance because of the distinctive lift of dress revealing the petticoat, from cotte (“dress”) + -illon (diminutive). Said to derive from the then-popular song Ma commère, quand je danse, mon cotillion va-t-il bien.

Words formed from cotillion

Phrases with cotillion

Questions about cotillion

What does cotillion mean?
Cotillion means a bold dance performed in groups of eight where women lift their skirts to display their ankles.
What is cotillion in Tagalog?
Cotillion in Tagalog is kotilyon. See Cotillion meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is cotillion?
Cotillion can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce cotillion?
Cotillion is pronounced /kəʊtɪlˈjɒ̃/ (UK).
What is the plural of cotillion?
The plural of cotillion is cotillions.

Words near cotillion in the dictionary

  1. cotidal
  2. cotija
  3. cotijas
  4. cotillage
  5. Cotillard
  6. cotillion
  7. cotillion ball
  8. cotillion balls
  9. cotillioned
  10. cotillioning
  11. cotillions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cotillion (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Yangolin-cotillion.wav.

Cite this entry: “cotillion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cotillion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.