toedance

toedance (third-person singular simple present toedances, present participle toedancing, simple past and past participle toedanced)

1. Alternative form of toe-dance
   • 1954, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Nomination of Robert E. Lee to be a member of the FCC, page 29:

     Senator SMATHERS: I forgot what that answer was to my question which was whether you had made up your mind on where an individual is requesting and whether you would allow the individual to increase the number of television stations which he owned. Did you answer that? Mr. LEE: No. I was toedancing a little bit.

   • 1956, Harold Witt, “Boy”, in Saturday review, volume 39, page 23:

     Comedian of love, my wind willed boy has entered the bees' abode, the danger yard of roses his second spring to toedance with the wasps.

   • 1998, Richard Elman, Namedropping: Mostly Literary Memoirs, page 19:

     He toedanced and swung at imaginary opponents as this contender or that and would stop and thoughtfully indicate just what had been the crucial blow to end the fight and where and with what velocity it had landed on the face or body of his opponent.

   • 2000, Amiri Baraka, The Fiction of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, page 360:

     Like a lost chord reflected from always. "Yo' name?" & she lit up the room w/ this black sensuality that made him toedance around her, trying to tie her up.

   • 2005, Sable: The Lit Mag for New Writing - Issues 7-10, page 117:

     ... yes over there they dance in Chicago in new york in detroit in los angeles in d.c. they toedance, the big toe pointing outward toward that star, the one that scorched an earth for katherine and carmen and judith and debbie and you....

   • 2015, R. Edward Turner, Quotable Perot, page 100:

     I want a person who's in a senior position busy serving the people, not chasing around at night, trying to toedance between his responsibilities to his family and his family and his latest hot chick.

toedance (plural toedances)

1. Alternative form of toe dance
   • 1926, Lynn Montross, Lois Montross, Fraternity Row, page 44:

     Brother Fatleigh getting tight and offering the name of his bootlegger to the Dean of Women . . . the raucous song — , the little import who insists on doing a toedance — the spirited punch — the jazz that launched a thousand hips !"

   • 1954, Numbers - Volumes 1-3, page 10:

     We will give them the keys to existence and drive them crazy present then with a fishbowl which will recite a poem; have a toedance performed by a pedagogical whale with a ballet of riderless bicycles.

   • 1997, More Opening Nights on Broadway:

     The number isn't a toedance, the entire project is preposterous, and then, having shown us how delicately she can work, she proceeds to tap on the toes.

• anecdote, encoated