Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In India, a kind of ballet-dance performed by professional dancers called by Europeans nautch-girls; any kind of stage-entertainment, especially one which includes dancing.
Wiktionary
- n. A dance in South Asia, performed by professional dancing girls.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. India An entertainment consisting chiefly of dancing by professional dancing (or Nautch) girls.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an intricate traditional dance in India performed by professional dancing girls
Etymologies
- From Hindustani नाच (nāc) / ناچ (nāc). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“A vague notion prevails that a nautch is a very naughty and improper exhibition.”
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873
“The musically inclined colonizers, even during the time of Warren Hastings used to refer to dancers as 'nautch' girls (naach for dance in hindi) and even used to host 'nautch' parties in their residence; some of them even attempted to play their raga based music on harpsichords.”
“But Polly's was like the mad and lawless ceremonial of some heathen temple where incense arose and nautch girls writhed.”
“Whether represented by an oil painting of heroic British women or images of sultry nautch girls, Lucknow in this last gallery is reduced to a series of competing icons.”
The Wall Street Journal: Where East Met West To Wondrous Effect
“Ruler Nasir al-Din Haidar appears in Kettle's portrait wearing a European-style crown, while a 1786-88 portrait of Antoine-Louis Henri Polier, a French officer and tireless art collector, shows a mustachioed European in caftan and turban sitting on cushions watching a nautch girl caught middance, one arm raised, an ankle encircled in bells.”
The Wall Street Journal: Where East Met West To Wondrous Effect
“If he had been the true commander here, he would have put a stop to all of these unseemly festivities, ordered a halt for prayer five times a day, had the camp swept free of the women of ill repute and the nautch girls.”
“I let out an astonishing noise, and was trying to steady myself for a plunge, but she checked me with a lifted hand, slid one foot forward, crooked her arms like a nautch-dancer, and came gliding slowly towards me, swaying that splendid golden nakedness in time to the throbbing of the music beneath our feet.”
“I came out rotten with fleas, stinking of nautch-oil and cheap perfume and cooking ghee, with my ears full of beggars 'whines and hawkers' jabbering and the clang of the booths - but that was all.”
“It may be significant that he never saw her face clearly on that occasion, and his description of the encounter might seem to suggest that the lady who entertained him was a professional nautch-dancer or courtesan, rather than the Rani.”
“There are some two hundred nautch-girls there; but they are forbidden to dance before men, though I have heard that the law can be evaded on occasions.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nautch’.
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2008 more...
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Turning and Twisting Tours
words in the nature of double spirals
swift, swerve, swirl, swivel, swarm, swag, swank, swoop, swinge, swarf, spire, esparto and 361 more...
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The word collector
My collection of words that are intriguing, but don't fit my other lists.
snailery, aplasia, postulant, aigrette, caravel, frigate, capeskin, suffusion, schist, varlet, sepulchral, anisotropy and 317 more...
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hoppestere
dancing on waves - a mysterious term of Chaucer that I can't bury or even embalm.
mudra, orchesis, poussette, gestic, reel, coupee, riffle, hula, allemande, pavan, pantomime, geisha and 21 more...
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Middlesex
Gleanings from Jeffrey Eugenides' 2002 book of that title.
kukla, kundalini, pantocrator, tsoureki, cruciform, rebetika, periphescence, phylloxera, raki, scrapyard, praying mantis, pilothouse and 38 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nautch.
knitandpurl "The world moves so much—shimmers and shakes like a nautch dancer, more than you can ever know when you're in it rather than looking at it."
--Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik, p 255 Sep 29, 2008
mollusque His eyebrows, however, were as seductively arched as a nautch girl's, his eyelashes so thick he might have been wearing mascara.
--Jeffrey Eugenides, 2002, Middlesex, p. 89 Aug 16, 2008