Meaning
To do something so dangerous that death seems a likely partner in the undertaking; to court mortal risk as if death were your dancing companion. The image leans on the medieval Dance of Death, in which Death himself led his victims to the grave. Usually with the article (a dance with death); gerund form common in journalism (dancing with death). Do not confuse with the Grim Reaper, already catalogued here, who carries the same medieval iconography but names the figure, not the risk. Regional use: All English-speaking countries.
Origin
The phrase descends from the late-medieval allegory the Danse Macabre, in which a personification of Death summons representatives from all walks of life - a pope, an emperor, a king, a child, a labourer - to dance along to the grave, a memento mori on the universality of death that took hold in the plague era. The earliest recorded visual scheme was the now-lost mural at Holy Innocents' Cemetery in Paris, painted in 1424-25, and Hans Holbein the Younger drew his famous Dance of Death designs in 1526, published in 1538. English called the allegory the dance of death, and Wiktionary still lists dance of death as a synonym of danse macabre. The modern figurative use is looser and everyday: McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Idioms glosses dance with death as attempting to do something that is very risky, with the example 'The crossing of the border into enemy territory was like dancing with death'. The wording also sits in a family of risk idioms - tempting fate, flirting with danger, dice with death.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- dance of death
- dancing with death
- danse macabre
Usage Examples
- Free soloing that ridge without a rope is dancing with death, however strong you feel.
- Every journalist who crossed the border during the war knew they were dancing with death.
- He danced with death for years, two packs a day and a motorbike, and somehow reached eighty.