Home UK English buck-and-wing

Meaning of buck-and-wing in English:

buck-and-wing

noun

mainly historical US

  • A lively solo tap dance, performed typically in wooden-soled shoes.

    as modifier ‘buck-and-wing dance’
    • ‘Joplin was obviously familiar with virtuosic pianism, as well as the minstrels’ ‘plantation melodies,’ cakewalks, buck-and-wings and jigs, prior to his professional start in St. Louis in 1885.’
    • ‘A buck-and-wing is a solo tap dance with many leg flings and leaps.’
    • ‘A large, crowded party (without an audio track) thus sounds like a troop of chipmunks dancing a buck-and-wing in a thatched roof.’
    • ‘The ancient dances of America haven't such roots, nor such vitality; and we may have to become much more simple, or much more sophisticated, before we will proceed naturally to buck-and-wing and cakewalk and the ordinary breakdown on the floor of the Palais Royal.’
    • ‘That is why Hayakawa, 73, takes regular tap lessons, frequently practicing his steps before a mirror to make certain his buck-and-wings are smooth.’