Home › Glossary › Letter C

Country dance

Dance
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A social folk dance performed by couples in lines, circles, or sets, using repeated figures. In poetry, it evokes rural sociability, courtship, tradition, and ordered communal pleasure.

Detailed Definition
Country dance refers to a broad family of social dances that developed in Britain and Europe, with couples performing repeated figures in lines, circles, or set formations. Though rooted in communal recreation, many country dances also entered fashionable ballrooms. In poetry, they provide an image of rural festivity, neighbourly contact, courtship, and harmony achieved through shared rhythm. Their patterned exchanges can symbolise the movements of society itself, while nostalgic poems may use them to mourn vanished customs, lost youth, or the decline of village life.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The fiddler called the country dance, and neighbours joined hands beneath the lamps” creates a scene of rural community; A poet may use a country dance to represent courtship conducted within public custom; “The stars performed a country dance across the turning sky” applies its repeated figures to cosmic movement; Country dance imagery can express harmony, shared tradition, nostalgia, or the ordered exchange of partners and generations.
Additional Notes
Country dance covers several related traditions rather than one single dance. Couples may move in longways sets, circles, squares, or repeated figures, and historical examples range from village recreation to fashionable ballroom practice. In poetry, the form often represents community, courtship, inheritance, and harmony created through cooperation. It can also evoke nostalgia for a rural world imagined as simpler than modern life. Related terms include English country dance, contradance, reel, jig, folk custom, set dance, and pastoral poetry.
Also Known As
Country-dance English country dance Contredanse Contradance
Skip to main content