Schottische

//ʃɒˈtiːʃ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A partnered country dance resembling a slow polka, probably of French origin, first introduced in England in 1848.

    "The aim of whose existence appears to be that of rattling through the polka or schottische with the velocity of a spinning jenny."

  2. 2
    a German round dance resembling a slow polka wordnet
  3. 3
    Music for the schottische.
  4. 4
    music performed for dancing the schottische wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To dance a schottische. intransitive

    "I could only schottische a little."

Example

More examples

"The aim of whose existence appears to be that of rattling through the polka or schottische with the velocity of a spinning jenny."

Etymology

From French Schottische bohème, from German schottische (“Scottish”), from German Schotte (“a Scot”). First attested in 1849. For the pronunciation, the Oxford English Dictionary comments that the "quasi-French pronunciation […] has no justification". The Oxford Companion to Music (2002 edition) notes that this dance was first introduced to England as the German polka, but it was then superseded by a version known as the Schottische bohème or polka tremblante which appeared in Paris in the 1840s.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.