What is a male ballet dancer called?

Answer 1

danseur is the correct term... but I prefer: "Man-erina"

Answer 2

Hey Papayosha,

The term "ballet" refers to a form of dance in which conventional poses and steps are combined with leaps and turns. The word comes from our friends the French, and is based on the latin word "ballare," which means, as you might guess, "to dance." It first appeared in 1667, several years after King Louis XIV granted a group of dancing masters permission to use a room in the Louvre to work on their new technique; apparently, they had a little trouble coming up with a name for said technique.

According to my trusty dictionary, the term "ballerina" first appeared in 1815 (apparently, it took the Italians almost 150 years to come up with a word which referred to "them gals what are ballet dancers"). Finally, in 1828, the French came up with their own terms for ballet dancers, "danseur" and "danseuse," the masculine and feminine forms, respectively. For the lucky leads, we have "premier danseur" and "premiere danseuse" (or "premiere ballerina").

So, Chef, you can call your 3-year-old son a "danseur" if you like, and you'll be right. But for the sake of clarity when his little pals are running around your house on his 4th birthday, you might just want to use the English word "dancer," without the funny accent, and leave it at that (by that age they should all have the "male" part down).

Answer 3

a male ballet dancer

Answer 4

a male ballet dancer or a danseur

Answer 5

'danseur', check the dicitionary if you want to confirm.

Answer 6

try

Answer 7

a pansy