rigadoon

[ rig-uh-doon ]

/ ˌrɪg əˈdun /

a lively dance, formerly popular, for one couple, characterized by a jumping step and usually in quick duple meter.

a piece of music for this dance or in its rhythm.

Also rigaudon, rig·o·don [rig-uh-don] /ˌrɪg əˈdɒn/.

Origin of rigadoon

1685–95; < French rigaudon, perhaps from name Rigaud

She would dance you a rigadoon or cut a pigeon's wing for you very respectably.

The Poet at the Breakfast Table |Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
And the Doctor looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the young one he was talkin' about.

Elsie Venner |Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
To build a city he had only to play a rigadoon and a minuet; but the other hero destroyed them by the sound of rams' horns.

Voltaire's Romances |Franois-Marie Arouet
Arm in arm, their sabots clogging, they did a rigadoon down the winding road.

The Ten-foot Chain |Achmed Abdullah

The dance itself is nothing; it might as well be called a Rigadoon or a Sailor's Hornpipe, so far as the steps go.

Through the Mackenzie Basin |Charles Mair

rigadoon

/ (ˌrɪɡəˈduːn) /

an old Provençal couple dance, light and graceful, in lively duple time

a piece of music for or in the rhythm of this dance

C17: from French, allegedly from its inventor Rigaud, a dancing master at Marseille