Definition of "fandango"

The soldiers were oftener gambling and dancing beneath the walls than keeping watch upon the battlements, and nothing was heard from morning till night but the noisy contests of cards and dice, mingled with the sound of the bolero or fandango, the drowsy strumming of the guitar, and the rattling of the castanets, while often the whole was interrupted by the loud brawl and fierce and bloody contest.

1829, Washington Irving, chapter XXVI, in Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

We skipped the light fandango / Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor

1967, “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, in Procol Harum, performed by Procol Harum

I'm wearing a Spanish skirt so what's wrong with dancing a fandango.

2014, Rosie Harris, Looking For Love, page 179

When Auguste Fretéllière and the painter Theodore Gentilz attended a fandango in the 1840s, the festivities took place near Military Plaza.

2008, Gene Fowler, Mavericks: A Gallery of Texas Characters, page 38

Fortunately, in the nineteenth century Iosé Maria Esteva wrote a poetic and detailed account of 'La guanabana' being danced by a group of women at a fandango.

2013, Alec Dempster, Lotería Jarocha: Linoleum Prints, page 66

She had on a new silk dress, flounced clear up to her knees, and some kind of a fandango of a thing on her shoulders.

1878, Lumasea, Ruined, and how, page 25

To my infinite amusement it did take, and I had the satisfaction of seeing it on the boards and also hearing the audience roar with laughter; in fact, I laughed myself, not at my own jokes, but at the people who could be amused at such a fandango of nonsense.

1901, Marcian, Relics of the Late William Shakespeare, page 21

A splotch of colour on a wall charmed his eye, a fandango of shadows, the nonchalant pose of some labourer.

1934, Albert Craig Baird, Essays and Addresses Toward a Liberal Education, page 213

Such a fandango of wicked lies Mrs. Love had never heard tell in all her born days.

1950, Garnett Weston, Legacy of Fear, page 136

So it must have been appalling, a veritable stab in the belly, when these undreamed-of smells infiltrated the familiar ranks, assailing her nostrils with a gypsy effrontery, a fandango of exotic spice.

2002, David Grossman, The Book of Intimate Grammar: A Novel

"She was latin, and she was satin” a commotion by moonlight a conundrum by candlelight a fandango of respite and tailbones in an invertebratology of polyclads, skates, chitons, and vestigial gills

2009, Mathew Kinsella, The California Tales: A Novel, page A-285

I am preparing to set out in a fortnight, or little more, and jogging on comfortably through Bavaria, Suabia, and France (with a fandango of eight days at Paris), I shall get to Calais in the first week of May.

1849, Robert Murray Keith, Memoirs and Correspondence (official and Familiar), page 45

Venice whirled towards her fall, in the reign of the 120th Doge, in a fandango of high living and enjoyment, until at last Napoleon, brusquely deposing her ineffective Government, ended the Republic and handed the Serenissima contemptuously to the Austrians.

1979, Toby Cole, Venice, a Portable Reader, page 38

Scaramouche, what a fandango of a life.

2002, Theatre Record - Volume 22, Issues 19-26, page 1292

Highlights of the recent high society swirl include jewellery and watch collection debuts, champagne celebrations, boutique store openings, hi-tech art and product launches and fashion fandangos aplenty.

2019 July 1, “Chukkas for charity on Hua Hin sands”, in Tatler Thailand

So, what? She strangled her and stuck a broken bottle up her... fandango?

2016, Sally Wainwright, 12:04 from the start, in Happy Valley, season 2, episode 2, spoken by Shafiq Shah (Shane Zaza)