Word.ws English Dictionary

trip the light fantastic

trip the light fantastic verb: to dance or to move rhythmically to musical accompaniment, especially in a graceful or nimble manner.

Verb

trip the light fantastic (third-person singular simple present trips the light fantastic, present participle tripping the light fantastic, simple past and past participle tripped the light fantastic)

  1. To dance or to move rhythmically to musical accompaniment, especially in a graceful or nimble manner.
    • On board the steamer, which accompanied the yachts all through the race, the majority passed their time pleasantly in paying homage to Terpsichore; though there was not much room for dancing, a goodly array continued to trip the light fantastic.1856 December 1, The Empire, Sydney, page 5, column 2
    • "Swing Time:" Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers trip the light fantastic in this yarn about a dancer with a yen for gambling.1978 May 31, "Movies", in the St. Petersburg Independent, page 11-B

Forms of trip the light fantastic

third-person singular presenttrips the light fantastic
present participletripping the light fantastic
past participletripped the light fantastic
pasttripped the light fantastic
alternative formtrip the light fantastic toe

Origin of trip the light fantastic

Shortening of trip the light fantastic toe.

Questions about trip the light fantastic

What does trip the light fantastic mean?
Trip the light fantastic means to dance or to move rhythmically to musical accompaniment, especially in a graceful or nimble manner.
What part of speech is trip the light fantastic?
Trip the light fantastic is a verb.
What is the past tense of trip the light fantastic?
The past tense of trip the light fantastic is tripped the light fantastic.

Words near trip the light fantastic in the dictionary

  1. trip sitting
  2. trip slip
  3. trip slips
  4. trip switch
  5. trip switches
  6. trip the light fantastic
  7. trip the light fantastic toe
  8. trip tic
  9. trip tics
  10. trip to Jerusalem
  11. trip to the woodshed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trip the light fantastic (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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