Word.ws English Dictionary

dance to a new tune

dance to a new tune verb: to significantly change one's opinion, attitude, or behavior.

Verb

dance to a new tune (third-person singular simple present dances to a new tune, present participle dancing to a new tune, simple past and past participle danced to a new tune)

  1. To significantly change one's opinion, attitude, or behavior.
    • Policy was to be bold, not timid; campaign promises were to be carried out, not cynically shelved; and the public service would dance to a new tune, one where the ministers called the tune.1991, J. L. Granatstein, Robert Bothwell, Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy, →ISBN, page 207
    • We must ask God to give us strength to dance to a new tune.2005, Louis Adams, Diary of a Shattered Spirit, →ISBN, page 46
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see dance, new, tune.

Examples of dance to a new tune in a sentence

  • As a result, the Japanese found themselves having to dance to a new tune and it was one they were scarcely familiar with.2008, Ian Nish, The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe: A New Assessment, →ISBN:
  • I can make neutrons dance to a new tune, but I shrink from telling a human tick to fasten onto someone else.2011, Bob Shaw, The Peace Machine, →ISBN:

Forms of dance to a new tune

third-person singular presentdances to a new tune
present participledancing to a new tune
past participledanced to a new tune
pastdanced to a new tune

Questions about dance to a new tune

What does dance to a new tune mean?
Dance to a new tune means to significantly change one's opinion, attitude, or behavior.
How do you use dance to a new tune in a sentence?
As a result, the Japanese found themselves having to dance to a new tune and it was one they were scarcely familiar with.
What part of speech is dance to a new tune?
Dance to a new tune is a verb.
What is the past tense of dance to a new tune?
The past tense of dance to a new tune is danced to a new tune.

Words near dance to a new tune in the dictionary

  1. dance studio
  2. dance studios
  3. dance the hempen jig
  4. dance the Tyburn jig
  5. dance to a different tune
  6. dance to a new tune
  7. dance to someone's tune
  8. dance upon nothing
  9. dance with the devil
  10. dance with the one that brought ya
  11. dance with the one that brought you

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dance to a new tune (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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Cite this entry: “dance to a new tune.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dance_to_a_new_tune. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.