💃 Spanish ballroom dance 🎺 Spanish march music

paso doble

1 8.2

Lively march music from Spain often played at bullfights

noun
/ˈpɑːsoʊ ˈdoʊbleɪ/

: pasodoble

The orchestra played a traditional paso doble as the matadors entered the arena.

Examples

The band played a lively paso doble at the festival.
The paso doble is often performed during bullfights.
Every year, the festival opens with a lively paso doble played by the town band.
The dramatic rhythm of a paso doble energizes the dancers' performance.
The orchestra played a traditional paso doble as the matadors entered the arena.
Every year, the festival opens with a lively paso doble played by the town band.
The dramatic rhythm of a paso doble energizes the dancers' performance.

Synonyms

dance music

vspaso doble

15 1.4

Music with a strong beat that people dance to at parties

is a specific lively march from Spain used for a formal dance and bullfights

Surface Forms

paso doble singular

paso dobles plural

Morphology

paso + doble

If a learner knew the constituents as Spanish 'paso' (step) and 'doble' (double) they could plausibly infer something like a 'double step' and therefore guess it names a dance, but the full, culturally specific meaning (a fast Spanish ballroom dance evoking a bullfight) is not fully predictable from the parts. As a loaned proper name for a particular dance the term is partly compositional but requires prior exposure to recover the exact sense and connotations.

Etymology

Paso doble comes from Spanish and literally uses paso 'step' and doble 'double'. One popular story says it began as a short marching tune played when matadors walked into the bullring, and that lively march is why a paso doble is a fast, dramatic piece often heard at bullfights and for dancing.