Word.ws English Dictionary

dance on nothing

dance on nothing verb: to be hanged.

Verb

dance on nothing (third-person singular simple present dances on nothing, present participle dancing on nothing, simple past and past participle danced on nothing)

  1. (archaic, idiomatic) To be hanged.
    • Oh! Do hang him-we have waited
      Many a day for such a chance;
      Let the hempen cord be baited;
      See how gracefully he'll dance
      Dance on nothing! oh, how funny![…]1849, A. H. Baker, “Hang the Black Rascal”, in The Prisoners' Friend
    • I would much rather be here, my lady, than dancing on nothing in the Hanging-wood, near Parkend1831, David Erskine, James III […]

Synonyms of dance on nothing

4 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of dance on nothing

third-person singular presentdances on nothing
present participledancing on nothing
past participledanced on nothing
pastdanced on nothing

Questions about dance on nothing

What does dance on nothing mean?
Dance on nothing means to be hanged.
What part of speech is dance on nothing?
Dance on nothing is a verb.
What is the past tense of dance on nothing?
The past tense of dance on nothing is danced on nothing.

Words near dance on nothing in the dictionary

  1. dance moves
  2. dance music
  3. dance of death
  4. dance of the seven veils
  5. dance on a rope
  6. dance on nothing
  7. dance on someone's grave
  8. dance out
  9. dance pad
  10. dance pads
  11. dance platform

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dance on nothing (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.

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