minuet

Etymology

From French menuet, from menu (“small”) + -et (“diminutive”), from Latin minutus (“very small”).

noun

1. A slow graceful dance consisting of a coupé, a high step, and a balance.
2. (music) A tune or air to regulate the movements of the minuet dance: it has the dance form, and is commonly in 3/4, sometimes 3/8, measure.
3. (music) A complete short musical composition inspired by and conforming to many formal characteristics of the traditional musical accompaniment to the dance of same name.
4. (music) A movement which is part of a longer musical composition such as a suite, sonata, or symphony which is inspired by and conforming to formal characteristics of the dance of same name.

verb

1. To dance a minuet.
   After he had raved his time upon the stage, the ladies and knights again minueted for an hour, and again gave place. 1838, William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger, A Voyage Round the World, page 318
   Within the same circle with the pigeons, were beautiful albatrosses, poising and minueting with them in the most pleasing fellowship. 1840, “An Officer of the U. S. Navy,”, in Around the World: A Narrative of a Voyage in the East India Squadron, Under Commodore George C. Read, page 163
   This set the pattern for four years, as the two monarchs minueted around the vast Commonwealth, never again to face each other personally in battle. 2001, Tony Sharp, Pleasure and Ambition: The Life, Loves and Wars of Augustus the Strong, page 185