fandango — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A form of lively flamenco music and dance that has many regional variations (e.g. fandango de Huelva), some of which have their own names (e.g. malagueña, granadina).

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   The soldiers were oftener gambling and dancing beneath the walls than keeping watch upon the battlements, and nothing was heard from morning till night but the noisy contests of cards and dice, mingled with the sound of the bolero or fandango, the drowsy strumming of the guitar, and the rattling of the castanets, while often the whole was interrupted by the loud brawl and fierce and bloody contest.

   […] sweet to us it is to behold delightful dancing, be it the stately splendour of the Pavane which progresseth as large clouds at sun-down that pass by in splendour; or the graceful Allemande; or the Fandango, which goeth by degrees from languorous beauty to the swiftness and passion of Bacchanals dancing on the high lawns under a summer moon that hangeth in the pine trees; or the joyous maze of the Galliard; or the Gigue, dear to the Foliots.

   We skipped the light fandango / Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor

   I see a little silhouetto of a man / Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?

   More examples (1)

   I'm wearing a Spanish skirt so what's wrong with dancing a fandango.

2. A gathering for dancing; a ball.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   When Auguste Fretéllière and the painter Theodore Gentilz attended a fandango in the 1840s, the festivities took place near Military Plaza.

   Fortunately, in the nineteenth century Iosé Maria Esteva wrote a poetic and detailed account of 'La guanabana' being danced by a group of women at a fandango.

3. An unknown entity or contraption.

   Usage

   • Colloquial
   • Countable
   • Figurative
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   What’s that fandango you’re using?

   She had on a new silk dress, flounced clear up to her knees, and some kind of a fandango of a thing on her shoulders.

4. A confusion; a chaotic collection.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   To my infinite amusement it did take, and I had the satisfaction of seeing it on the boards and also hearing the audience roar with laughter; in fact, I laughed myself, not at my own jokes, but at the people who could be amused at such a fandango of nonsense.

   A splotch of colour on a wall charmed his eye, a fandango of shadows, the nonchalant pose of some labourer.

   Such a fandango of wicked lies Mrs. Love had never heard tell in all her born days.

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   So it must have been appalling, a veritable stab in the belly, when these undreamed-of smells infiltrated the familiar ranks, assailing her nostrils with a gypsy effrontery, a fandango of exotic spice.

   "She was latin, and she was satin” a commotion by moonlight a conundrum by candlelight a fandango of respite and tailbones in an invertebratology of polyclads, skates, chitons, and vestigial gills

5. An extravaganza; an instance of lavish and fantastical events or behavior.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   I am preparing to set out in a fortnight, or little more, and jogging on comfortably through Bavaria, Suabia, and France (with a fandango of eight days at Paris), I shall get to Calais in the first week of May.

   Venice whirled towards her fall, in the reign of the 120th Doge, in a fandango of high living and enjoyment, until at last Napoleon, brusquely deposing her ineffective Government, ended the Republic and handed the Serenissima contemptuously to the Austrians.

   Scaramouche, what a fandango of a life.

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   Highlights of the recent high society swirl include jewellery and watch collection debuts, champagne celebrations, boutique store openings, hi-tech art and product launches and fashion fandangos aplenty.

6. A shade of red-violet.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

7. Vagina.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • euphemistic
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   So, what? She strangled her and stuck a broken bottle up her... fandango?

Verb

1. To dance the fandango.

2. To dance, particularly with a lot of energy.

   Usage

   • Figurative

Noun

1. a provocative Spanish courtship dance in triple time; performed by a man and a woman playing castanets

   Broader terms

   social dancing