Word.ws English Dictionary

cut the pigeon wing

cut the pigeon wing verb: to dance with graceful or fancy movements.

Verb

cut the pigeon wing (third-person singular simple present cuts the pigeon wing, present participle cutting the pigeon wing, simple past and past participle cut the pigeon wing)

  1. (US, dated, idiomatic) To dance with graceful or fancy movements.
    • […]that was because no manager could imagine that audiences would pay to see Negro performers in any other role than that of Mississippi River roustabouts; but there was lots of talent and ambition. I often heard the younger and brighter men discussing the time when they would compel the public to...1912, James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
    • They all tried to be polite, and Russ grew quite friendly with one of the bellboys who brought them ice water. He asked that boy if he knew how to cut the pigeon wing, and the boy grinned very broadly.1922, Laura Lee Hope [pseudonym], Six little Bunkers at Mammy June's

Forms of cut the pigeon wing

third-person singular presentcuts the pigeon wing
present participlecutting the pigeon wing
past participlecut the pigeon wing
pastcut the pigeon wing
alternative formcut the pigeon's wing
alternative formcut pigeon wings

Questions about cut the pigeon wing

What does cut the pigeon wing mean?
Cut the pigeon wing means to dance with graceful or fancy movements.
What part of speech is cut the pigeon wing?
Cut the pigeon wing is a verb.
What is the past tense of cut the pigeon wing?
The past tense of cut the pigeon wing is cut the pigeon wing.

Words near cut the pigeon wing in the dictionary

  1. cut the Gordian knot
  2. cut the ground from under someone's feet
  3. cut the knot
  4. cut the mustard
  5. cut the muster
  6. cut the pigeon wing
  7. cut the rug
  8. cut the shit
  9. cut the umbilical cord
  10. cut throat
  11. cut throats

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut the pigeon wing (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:

Cite this entry: “cut the pigeon wing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cut_the_pigeon_wing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.