💃 To dance with hips 💃 A hip dance

to belly dance

1 4.0

To move the hips and stomach in a Middle Eastern dance

phrasal verb
/ˈbɛli dæns/

: bailar danza del vientre

Many people take lessons to belly dance at cultural festivals.

Examples

Should I belly dance?

Love Happens (2009)
We want you to teach us how to belly dance in our next class.
She loves to belly dance during family gatherings because it brings everyone together.

Synonyms

to dance

vsto belly dance

∞ 1.0

To move your body in time to music

is a specific Middle Eastern form that emphasizes sinuous hip and abdomen motion

to folk dance

vsto belly dance

3.7

To dance in a traditional style from a region

is a Middle Eastern tradition focused on sinuous hip and abdomen movements

to country-dance

vsto belly dance

7.4

To dance in sets or lines to traditional folk music

is a Middle Eastern style centered on isolated hip and abdomen movements

to breakdancing

vsto belly dance

3.7

To do energetic street dance moves with flips and spins

is a fluid sinuous abdominal style rather than acrobatic street moves

to tapdance

vsto belly dance

3.4

To move the feet to make a rhythm with small metal plates on special shoes

is an expressive hip and abdomen movement style not focused on foot sounds

Surface Forms

belly dance infinitive

belly danced past

belly danced past participle

belly dancing present participle

belly dances third person singular

Morphology

belly + dance

The meaning 'to perform a dance characterized by sinuous movements of the hips and abdomen' is directly and compositionally derived from 'belly' (abdomen) + 'dance' (to move rhythmically). This is a straightforward descriptive compound found across languages (e.g., French 'danse du ventre'), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would very likely infer the meaning.

Etymology

Belly dance comes from the same picture: to belly dance is to move your belly and hips in the style of those dances. So the verb means 'to perform that kind of dance'.