Word.ws English Dictionary

dance card

/ˈdɑːns kɑːd/US/ˈdæns ˌkɑɹd/

dance card noun: an appointment schedule.

Noun

dance card (plural dance cards)

  1. (figuratively) An appointment schedule.
    • My dance card is full this week. What about meeting next week?
    • I won't be leaving this room, Leo. And you're the only name on my dance card, sweetheart. Thanks for lunch.2009, Pat Conroy, “The Tenderloin”, in South of Broad, London: Corvus, Grove Atlantic, published January 2010, →ISBN
  2. (figuratively) A list of items.
    • [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."2009 August 21, “‘Inglourious Basterds’ director Quentin Tarantino picks his favorite WWII movies”, in Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.: Northwest Publications, published 13 November 2015, →ISSN...
    • [T]he dance card of companies spying on you while you are online is chocker already.2018 November 29, Rebecca Stevenson, “Huawei for Dummies: China’s Tech Company and Why It’s been Banned by Our Spies”, in Stuff, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2020
  3. (dated) A card on which a person (usually a woman) lists those with whom they have agreed to dance.
    • How could your dance card be full already, Martha? You just got here.
    • […] 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.1886 December, “Advertisements”, in Amherst Literary Monthly, volume I, number 6, Amherst, Mass.: Senior Class at Amherst College, →OCLC

Examples of dance card in a sentence

  • Next on her [Ellie Kendrick's] rapidly filling dance card is 'An Education', a Nick Hornby-scripted movie co-starring fellow rising star Carey Mulligan.2009 February 15, “The IoS Hot List”, in The Independent on Sunday, London: Independent News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
  • It's going to be a ball when NASA's Dawn spacecraft finally arrives at the dwarf planet Ceres, and mission managers have now inked in the schedule on Dawn's dance card.2013 December 3, “NASA’s Dawn Fills Out Its Ceres Dance Card”, in Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration...
  • I wasn't able to be in New York doing that and be in Paris doing 'Emily in Paris.' […] My dance card was full."2021 May 25, Rosemary Feitelberg, “Patricia Field Talks ‘Emily in Paris,’ ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Run the World’”, in Women’s Wear Daily...
  • 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.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, archived...

Forms of dance card

pluraldance cards
alternative formdancecard
alternative formdance-card

Origin of dance card

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

Questions about dance card

What does dance card mean?
Dance card means an appointment schedule.
How do you use dance card in a sentence?
Next on her [Ellie Kendrick's] rapidly filling dance card is 'An Education', a Nick Hornby-scripted movie co-starring fellow rising star Carey Mulligan.
What part of speech is dance card?
Dance card is a noun.
How do you pronounce dance card?
Dance card is pronounced /ˈdɑːns kɑːd/ (UK).
What is the plural of dance card?
The plural of dance card is dance cards.

Words near dance card in the dictionary

  1. dance attendance
  2. dance band
  3. dance bands
  4. dance belt
  5. dance belts
  6. dance card
  7. dance cards
  8. dance drama
  9. dance dramas
  10. dance drug
  11. dance flies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dance card (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)-Vealhurl-dance card.wav.

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