Dance refers to a sequence of rhythmic steps or movements usually performed to music, for pleasure or as a form of social interaction. It commonly describes a social gathering where dancing is the main activity, a normally horizontal stripe called a fess that has been modified to zig-zag across the center of a coat of arms from dexter to sinister, and a genre of modern music characterised by sampled beats, repetitive rhythms and few lyrics, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Depending on context, it can also point to the art, profession, and study of dancing, a piece of music with a particular dance rhythm, and a battle of wits, especially one commonly fought between two rivals, so the category can cover literal uses, related ideas, and more figurative extensions of the same core meaning. Taken together, these meanings present Dance as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language. Additional shades of meaning include to move with rhythmic steps or movements, especially in time to music, to leap or move lightly and rapidly, to perform the steps to, to cause to dance, or move nimbly or merrily about, and to make love or have sex, which reinforce how the category can stretch across adjacent but still recognizable uses of the same term.
