belly dance

See also: bellydance and belly-dance

English

Alternative forms

• bellydance
• belly-dance

Etymology

Calque of French danse du ventre, equivalent to belly +‎ dance. First attested in English in 1889, in an article about that year's Exposition Universelle in Paris in the November 22 edition of the Yorkshire Factory Times: "A café in the Rue du Caire attracted 2,000 spectators daily to see the ‘belly dance’, and realised a total of 400,000 francs." Early sources also used the French term danse du ventre as-is.

Noun

belly dance (countable and uncountable, plural belly dances)

1. A form of dance originating in the Middle East and characterized by movements of the torso.

Translations

form of dance

• Arabic: رَقْص شَرْقِيّ m (raqṣ šarqiyy) (oriental dance), رَقْص بَلَدِيّ m (raqṣ baladiyy) (national dance)
• Armenian: պորտապար (hy) (portapar)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 肚皮舞 (zh) (dùpíwǔ)

• Czech: břišní tanec m
• Danish: mavedans
• Dutch: buikdans (nl) m
• Esperanto: ventra danco
• Finnish: vatsatanssi (fi)
• French: danse du ventre (fr) f
• German: Bauchtanz (de) m, orientalischer Tanz m
• Greek: χορός οριεντάλ m (chorós orientál)
• Hebrew: מחול מזרחי
• Hungarian: hastánc (hu)
• Icelandic: magadans (is) m
• Indonesian: tari perut
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Interlingua: dansa de ventre
• Italian: danza del ventre f
• Japanese: ベリーダンス (berīdansu)
• Macedonian: стомачен танц m (stomačen tanc)
• Malay: tarian perut
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: magedans m, mavedans m

  Nynorsk: magedans m

• Persian: رقص عربی (raqs 'arabi) (Arabic dance)
• Polish: taniec brzucha (pl) m inan
• Portuguese: dança do ventre (pt) f
• Russian: та́нец живота́ (ru) m (tánec životá), беллидэ́нс m (bellidɛ́ns), беллида́нс (ru) m (bellidáns)
• Spanish: danza del vientre f
• Swedish: magdans c
• Turkish: göbek dansı (tr), oryantal (tr)
• Volapük: bälidadanüd

Verb

1. To perform a belly dance.

Derived terms

• belly dancer
• belly dancing

Further reading

• Hawthorn, Ainsley (May 2019). "Middle Eastern Dance and What We Call It." Dance Research 37 (1): 1-17.
• Hawthorn, Ainsley (May 23, 2019). "Why do we call Middle Eastern dance 'belly dance'?" Edinburgh University Press Blog.
• Morocco (C. Varga Dinicu) (2011). "What's in a Name? More Than You Imagine...." You Asked Aunt Rocky: Answers & Advice About Raqs Sharqi & Raqs Shaabi. Virginia Beach: RDI Publications, 319-350.
• Osweiler, Laura (Amara) (2006). "Naming the Dance." Zaghareet Magazine.
• Shira. "Belly Dance: A Dance By Any Other Name." Shira.net.

Anagrams

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