Highland fling

English

Noun

Highland fling (plural Highland flings)

  1. A solo dance of the Scottish Highlands.
    • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter 3, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:
      When Dandy Dinmont, after executing two or three caprioles, and cutting the Highland-fling, by way of ridicule of his wife's anxiety, at last deigned to sit down, and commit his round, black, shaggy bullet of a head to her inspection.
    • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 185:
      She had never danced a step in her life, but that experienced girl capering with circus grace in the Highland fling would, she knew, be as nothing to her given such inspiriting music.
    • 1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 156:
      The artichokes bounded up and down
      On top of the pumpkins' heads,
      And the cabbage was dancing the highland fling
      All over the onion beds.

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