Dictionary

kick up one's heels en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (figuratively) To dance.
   • Above the peals of laughter with which the words were received, rose Jake's voice, "Come on, ole fiddler, play somefin a nigger kin kick up his heels to; what's de use of singing after dat fashion; dis aint no meetin." 1852, Mary Henderson Eastman, chapter XI, in Aunt Phillis's Cabin:
   • He does not get on so well in the evening and night time, when his youthful audience has dispersed, and has been replaced by adults of the tag-rag and draggle-tail breed who have no taste for any tunes but those they can vigorously kick up their heels to, […] . 1881, James Greenwood, Low-Life Deeps, Chapter 16: A Cockney Holiday
2. (idiomatic) To relax; to enjoy oneself; to do as one pleases.
   • Everybody laughed, for he was a clumsy and comical beast to be decorated with roses and daisies. But the lady is proud of him, and now that pampered donkey has nothing to do but pull her Bath chair about, when she is at Holly Lodge, and kick up his heels on a clover pasture. 1912, Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, chapter XII, in Greyfriar's Bobby:
   • With a sum like that the fellow might easily kick up his heels, as the saying is, and run away, not only out of the village, but even out of the District. 1916, Vladimir Korolenko, translated by Marian Fell, The Day of Atonement:
   • "Therefore he has a right, for a change, to 'kick up his heels?" 1904, Henry James, chapter XVI, in The Golden Bowl:
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see kick, up, one's, heels.
   • If a swimmer kicks up his heels and splashes the water, the judge will take points off accordingly.

Forms

Relateds

kick back · kick one's heels

Translations (2)

pl tańczyć (dance) · sv svänga sina lurviga (dance)