toe dance

toe dance noun: a dance performed on the balls of the feet or en pointe.

Noun

toe dance (plural toe dances)

(literally) A dance performed on the balls of the feet or en pointe.
- In the excitement of trying to get the ball launched he may do a momentary toe dance, then crouch, stand, skip, or run before finally lobbing the ball a total of perhaps seven feet.1962, W. Cleon Skousen, So You Want to Raise a Boy?, page 65
- Even the toe dance, so much despised by Isadora Duncan and by the schools she inspired, is essentially creative, not athletic.1983, Roger Copeland, Marshall Cohen, What is Dance?: Readings in Theory and Criticism, page 40
(figuratively) The act of avoiding an issue by equivocation, complicated diplomacy, or changing the subject.
- One of my concerns, frankly, is that we are just kind of, you know, we hold a hearing and we talk about it a little bit, and then it disappears from the limelight, and we are kind of doing a toe dance around the problems in Liberia rather than really addressing the problems as forcefully as we...1994, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Subcommittee on African Affairs, U.S. policies toward Liberia, Togo, and Zaire
- Even though the wealth is mine, Gordon manages it, which means I still do the toe dance to convince him that “our money,” as he now calls it, is put to good use.2010, Linda Francis Lee, The Devil in the Junior League: A Novel

toe dance (third-person singular simple present toe dances, present participle toe dancing, simple past and past participle toe danced)

(literally) To dance on one's toes.
- It was a common scene for one of the older boys to play the fiddle while the others toe danced.1955, Louis Salisbury Leatham, The Letham or Leatham family book of remembrance
- Twyla Tharp could have toe danced on the counter, and the president wouldn't have noticed.1996, Judy Hogan, The Shade, page 339
(figuratively) To avoid an issue.
- Doctors toe dance around diagnosis of the disease, too.2013, Lori Micken, Eighty Years in Montana, page 205

This is a toe dance that alternates between the toe ( more specifically, the ball of the foot ) and the heel.1985, Frets - Volume 7, page 23:
The eclipse of male supremacy in dancing onstage began in the 1830s when Marie Taglioni established a foothold for women, employing the toe dance as an essential element of ballet.1988, Judith Lynne Hanna, Dance, Sex, and Gender, page 125:
He was a big guy, weighed about 260 pounds and he toe danced in ballerina shoes!2001, Marshal Royal, Claire P. Gordon, Marshal Royal: Jazz Survivor, page 44:

Noun
plural	toe dances
alternative form	toedance
alternative form	toe-dance
Verb
third-person singular present	toe dances
present participle	toe dancing
past participle	toe danced
past	toe danced

What does toe dance mean?: Toe dance means a dance performed on the balls of the feet or en pointe.
How do you use toe dance in a sentence?: This is a toe dance that alternates between the toe ( more specifically, the ball of the foot ) and the heel.
What part of speech is toe dance?: Toe dance can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of toe dance?: The plural of toe dance is toe dances.

Adapted from Wiktionary: toe dance (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: 2026-09-02

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