Dictionary

taxi dancer en · NOUN

Etymology

Refers to the fact that a taxi dancer is paid per dance, and thus proportionately to the time spent with a client, similarly to a taxi driver.

Meanings

1. (US) A woman who works as a professional dance partner in a dancehall that charges customers a price per dance.
   • Like waitresses, taxi dancers, women who danced with male customers for a small fee, created a cooperative atmosphere with each other both in the closed dance halls in which they worked and outside of the workplace. 1991, Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930, page 107:
   • Historically taxi-dancers were considered immoral women by the reformers of the nineteen-teens and twenties both because they participated with strangers in an activity generally reserved for established couples and because some engaged in various forms of prostitution. 1990, Clinton Sanders, Marginal Conventions: Popular Culture, Mass Media, and Social Deviance, page 45:
   • They apparently remain taxi-dancers for only about a year or two[.] 1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 88:
   • At times, taxi dancers were observed arriving at the club in the front seat of the cab, which suggested a relationship with the hack man. 2007, Graham Russell Hodges, Taxi!: A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver, page 40:

Forms

Relateds

taxi dancing · taxi dance hall · taxi dance · taxi-dance