Quadrille

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪl

French, in sense of “group of knights”, from Spanish cuadrilla, diminutive of cuadra ("square") (compare also cuadra ("four")), from Latin quadra.

Merriam Webster Online

Full definition of quadrille

Noun

1. A dance originating in the mid-1700s with four dancers forming a square, rather much like the modern square dance.
• 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The movements of the other women were more or less similar to Tess's, the whole bevy of them drawing together like dancers in a quadrille at the completion of a sheaf by each, every one placing her sheaf on end against those of the rest, till a shock, or 'stitch' as it was here called, of ten or a dozen was formed.
2. The music for this dance.
3. (card games) A Spanish trick-taking card game from the 1700s.
• 1812, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice Chapter 17, It now first struck her that she was selected from among her sisters as worthy of being the mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a quadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visitors.
4. A choreographed dressage ride, commonly performed to music, with a minimum of four horses.

Verb

1. (intransitive) To dance the quadrille.

From French quadrillé.

Noun

1. Quadrille ruled graph paper, quad paper.

Derived terms

• quadrille paper

Related terms

• quad
• quadrella