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mazurka

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.07 sec.
mazurka (məzûr`kə, –zr`–), Polish national dance that spread to England and the United States at the beginning of the 19th cent. Danced by four or eight couples and characterized by stamping of the feet and clicking of the heels, it is in moderate triple meter and permits improvisation. Chopin composed more than 50 mazurkas for piano.

mazurka

Polish folk dance in ³⁄₄ time for a circle of couples, characterized by stamping feet and clicking heels, traditionally danced to the music of bagpipes. Originating in Masuria (northeastern Poland) in the 16th century, it became popular at the Polish court and spread to Russia and Germany, reaching England and France by the 1830s. The 50 piano mazurkas by Frédéric Chopin reflected and extended the dance's popularity. It had no set figures and allowed improvisation among its more than 50 different steps.
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He taught certain uncouth lads, when they were of an age to enter society, the intricacies of contra dances, or the steps of the schottische and mazurka, and he was a marked figure in all social assemblies, though conspicuously absent from town-meetings and the purely masculine gatherings at the store or tavern or bridge.
Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm by Wiggin, Kate Douglas View in context
He led the mazurka at the Arkharovs' ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamenski, visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a colonel of forty to whom Denisov had introduced
War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo View in context
The week before, Kitty had told her mother of a conversation she had with Vronsky during a mazurka.
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo View in context
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