Word.ws English Dictionary

light fantastic toe

light fantastic toe noun: nimble and agile dancing ability; flamboyant and gay dance.

Noun

light fantastic toe (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Nimble and agile dancing ability; flamboyant and gay dance.
    • Sunday is the gayest, merriest, and most convivial day; the violins are playing, their cheering sounds [dismal enough WE think] echo in every house; and the "light fantastic toe" displays its every skill.1822 June 7, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, page 2, column 3
    • No "light fantastic toe" is required here; only a pair of hard soles and infinite energy.1925 August 5, The News, Adelaide, page 4, column 4

Origin of light fantastic toe

An allusion to John Milton's 1645 lyric poem L’Allegro, specifically the lines: "Com, and trip it as ye go / On the light fantastick toe."

Questions about light fantastic toe

What does light fantastic toe mean?
Light fantastic toe means nimble and agile dancing ability; flamboyant and gay dance.
What part of speech is light fantastic toe?
Light fantastic toe is a noun.

Words near light fantastic toe in the dictionary

  1. light entertainment
  2. light eon
  3. light eons
  4. light equation
  5. light fantastic
  6. light fantastic toe
  7. light fantastics
  8. light field
  9. light fields
  10. light fixture
  11. light fixtures

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: light fantastic toe (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: “light fantastic toe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/light_fantastic_toe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.