pirouette

See also: Pirouette and pirouetté

English

WOTD – 6 February 2007

Etymology

Borrowed from French pirouette, see there for more; attested since 1706.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌpɪ.ɹʊˈɛt/, /ˌpɪ.ɹuːˈɛt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌpɪ.ɹəˈwɛt/, /ˌpɪ.ɹuːˈɛt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛt

Noun

pirouette (plural pirouettes)

1. A whirling or turning on the toes in dancing, primarily in ballet.
   • 2023 October 14, HarryBlank, “Face Time”, in SCP Foundation‎^[1], archived from the original on 23 May 2024:

     "Serious as cognitohazard." Lillihammer danced down the corridor towards them, doing little pirouettes and leaping from toe to toe. "Reuben Wirth no longer exists. Gonna have to get Forsythe to do that brain scan to make sure I'm clean, but otherwise yeah. Poof."

2. The whirling about of a horse.
3. A wooden mouthpiece assembly or lip rest used in some European double-reed instruments.

Translations

whirling or turning on the toes

• Armenian: պիրուետ (hy) (piruet), ոտնապտույտ (hy) (otnaptuyt)
• Bulgarian: пирует m (piruet)
• Danish: piruet (da) c
• Finnish: piruetti
• French: pirouette (fr) f
• German: Pirouette (de) f
• Hungarian: piruett (hu)
• Korean: 피루엣 (piruet)
• Maori: huri hīteki
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: piruett m

  Nynorsk: piruett m

• Polish: piruet (pl) m
• Portuguese: pirueta f
• Romanian: piruetă (ro) f
• Russian: пируэ́т (ru) m (piruét)
• Swedish: piruett (sv) c
• Turkish: dönüş (tr)

the whirling about of a horse

• Danish: piruet (da) c
• Finnish: piruetti
• Hungarian: piruett (hu)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: piruett m

  Nynorsk: piruett m

• Polish: piruet (pl) m
• Portuguese: pirueta f
• Swedish: piruett (sv) c

a wooden mouthpiece assembly or lip rest

• Hungarian: piruett (hu), ajaktámasz

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• German: ^{(please verify)} Pirouette (de) f

Verb

pirouette (third-person singular simple present pirouettes, present participle pirouetting, simple past and past participle pirouetted)

1. (intransitive) To perform a pirouette; to whirl on the toes, like a dancer.
   • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VIII:

     I came down like a sack of coals. The pulse was rapid, the blood pressure high, and for awhile the Blue Room pirouetted about me like an adagio dancer.

Translations

to perform a pirouette

• Finnish: tehdä piruetti
• Polish: zakręcić piruet
• Portuguese: fazer (uma) pirueta

Further reading

• Glossary of ballet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Pirouette (dressage) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French pirouette, see there for more.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌpi.ruˈɛ.tə/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pi‧rou‧et‧te
• Rhymes: -ɛtə

Noun

pirouette f (plural pirouettes or pirouetten)

1. pirouette

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pi.ʁwɛt/

• Audio:

  (file)

Etymology 1

From a Gallo-Roman root *pir- („peg, plug“, hence Italian piruolo (“peg top”)) and -ette (diminutive suffix). The word originally meant a “spinning top” (15th century).

Noun

pirouette f (plural pirouettes)

1. a whirling or turning on the toes in dancing
2. (sports, equestrians) a whirling volt movement made by a horse

Derived terms

• pirouetter

Descendants

• → Catalan: pirueta
• → Dutch: pirouette
• → English: pirouette
• → German: Pirouette
• → Italian: piroetta
• → Polish: piruet
• → Russian: пируэ́т (piruét)

Etymology 2

Verb

pirouette

1. inflection of pirouetter:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “pirouette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• Vocabulaire de la danse classique on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^fr