dancer
Pluraldancers
- 1Someone who dances, whether for enjoyment, as an occupation, or as a trained professional.
The lead dancer held the final pose as the music faded.
Years of training turned her into a graceful dancer.
Note
The everyday sense, formed in Middle English from dance plus the agent suffix -er, with early spellings such as dauncer and dawncere. It covers anyone who dances, so the words around it decide whether it names a job or a skill. "I'm a terrible dancer" judges ability and says nothing about profession. Stepper is a near synonym.
- 2A polite or indirect word for a stripper: a performer who removes clothing as entertainment, typically in a club.
The dancer earned most of her income from tips at the club.
Several dancers shared the dressing room before their sets.
Similarstripper
Note
A euphemism that works by naming the performance rather than the undressing. The fuller exotic dancer makes the meaning unmistakable. Plain dancer leaves it to context, usually a club, so "she works as a dancer" can be read either way. Where the difference matters, exotic dancer or stripper keeps it apart from the ordinary sense.
- 3A thief who used rooftops to enter buildings through garret windows high in the roof.
A dancer broke into the merchant's home through a garret window at midnight.
[A]bout 40 were burglars, "dancers," "garreters," and other adepts with the skeleton keys.
1889, Charles Tempest Clarkson, J. Hall RichardsonNote
Thieves' slang, now obsolete, for the burglar who came in through the garret window rather than the door. Charles Tempest Clarkson and J. Hall Richardson's Police! (1889) sets "dancers" beside "garreters" and skeleton-key men, with both words in inverted commas as underworld terms. In an old account it has nothing to do with the ordinary performer.
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Origin
From Middle English dauncer (also dawncere, dancere), equivalent to dance plus the suffix -er.