cancan

Alternative forms

• can-can

Etymology

Borrowed from French cancan.

Noun

cancan (plural cancans)

1. A high-kicking chorus line dance originating in France.
2. (motocross) A trick where one leg is brought over the seat, so that both legs are on one side.

Verb

cancan (third-person singular simple present cancans, present participle cancanning, simple past and past participle cancanned)

1. To dance the cancan.

Etymology

Borrowed from French cancan.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɑŋkɑn/, IPA^(key): /ˈkɑnˌkɑn/, IPA^(key): /ˈkænˌkæn/

Noun

cancan

1. cancan

Etymology

Supposedly, this word originates with a dispute at the Collège de France circa 1550, over whether to use a traditional French pronunciation of Latin or a reconstructed pronunciation of Latin. One of the points of most dispute was the pronunciation of qu, with the word quamquam exemplifying this: it was pronounced in reconstructed Latin as IPA^(key): [ˈkʷam.kʷã(m)] but pronounced in French Latin as IPA^(key): /kɑ̃.kɑ̃/ ("cancan"). After this debacle, a "cancan" came to be "any kind of scandalous performance".^[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɑ̃.kɑ̃/

Noun

cancan m (plural cancans)

1. gossip
2. cancan (dance)

Synonyms

• commérage
• qu'en-dira-t-on
• ragot

Further reading

• “cancan” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

References

Etymology

Borrowed from French cancan.

Noun

cancan c

1. cancan