czardas

/chahr"dahsh/, n.

a Hungarian national dance in two movements, one slow and the other fast.

Also, csardas.

[1855-60; < Hungarian csárdás, equiv. to csárda wayside tavern ( < Serbo-Croatian ccardak orig., watchtower < Turk < Pers chartak four-cornered room; car FOUR + tak vault) + -s adj. suffix; earlier csárdák was analyzed as csárda + -k pl. suffix]

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▪ Hungarian dance

also spelled  Csardas , Hungarian  Csárdás 

      national dance of Hungary. A courting dance for couples, it begins with a slow section (lassu), followed by an exhilarating fast section (friss). The individual dancers carry themselves proudly and improvise on a simple fundamental step, their feet snapping inward and outward, the couples whirling. The music, often played by a Gypsy orchestra, is in ²/₄ or ⁴/₄ time with compelling, syncopated rhythms. The czardas developed in the 19th century from an earlier folk dance, the magyar kör. A ballroom dance adapted from the czardas is popular in eastern Europe. A theatrical czardas with complicated Slavic and Hungarian folk-dance steps appears in ballet, as in Léo Delibes's Coppélia. Franz Liszt, in his Hungarian Rhapsodies, wrote music reminiscent of the czardas.

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