I can’t ever remember coming across this word before today, and I am pretty well read. If you guess turtles or terrapins, you are wrong.
Damn New York Times articles, always trying to outsmart me.
terpsichorean: referring to dance
I was somewhat close. I knew it had to do with performing arts though I was leaning towards music. Half credit.
Sure I do… it means relating to terpsichory.
I’m guessing a terpsichord is an organ, maybe.
checks spoiler
Or not. I meant a music-type organ, not a bodily organ, so I was in the right library, if not on the same page.
Yes, but only because news reports on the Fanny Fox scandal referred to her as a “terpsichorean ecdysiast” because calling her a stripper might have offended the readers of a family newspaper in the 1970s. :rolleyes: So I learned a little latinized greek.
I know I’m living up to my Dopername on “ecdysiast”, but you wanted it ff the top of my head, me Boyo!
And how come I can remember this from decades ago, but I can’t remember what I had for breakfast today. Tarim, I’m old!
I did indeed.
Monty Python: The Cheese Shop sketch brought it into my vocabulary.
Yup.
Looked up terpsichore years ago after having heard it in Frank Sinatra’s song Come Dance With Me.
Relating to dance, derived from “Terpsichore”, the Greek muse who was…in charge (or however you refer to what muses did) of dance and dramatic choruses.
Also, I’m cheating, because in my dorm complex all the dorms are named after muses, and I lived in Terpsichore over the summer.
You are not cheating if you knew it.
I knew it because it was on a spelling test once, somewhere around 1963. Is that cheating?
(I’ve seen it since 1963. Not too often, though, and usually in conjunction with Fred Astaire.)
Yep. Once upon a time I was a classics student.
I knew Terpsichore was one of the Muses, but I couldn’t remember which one, so no.
Yep, me too.
Though I STILL don’t know what Cleese was saying when he put on that high, funny voice.
Well, you see the phrase “terpsichorean harmonies” a lot.
Before I read the thread or spoiler box, my guess is:
Having to do with dance, after the muse Terpsichore.
same
Same here.
After a few obscure synonyms, I think the high-pitched part is:
“Eeh, I were all 'ungry, like.”
my dad uses words like that all the time. Though I’ll grant I didn’t know what “sartorial” meant :smack: (there’s a store near my old house (my parents’ house) called “sartorial designs” or something like)
I threw Floccinaucinihilipilification at him once just to piss him off 
Only time I’ve stumped my dad’s vocabulary 
I only knew it because of Xanadu. The character that Olivia Newton-John plays calls herself Kira, but when pressed reveals herself as Terpsichore. How gay does that make me?
I knew because of familiarity (both listening to and performing) Michael Praetorius’ enormous compilation of dance tunes which he entitled Terpsichore.
…and the one brave soul that strolls into the thread to admit she’s never heard the word before…
Well, Terpsichore was the muse of Dance (Hi, Clio! Big ups to Polyhymnia!), so that seems pretty obvious, but this is the Dope, so it’s probably a trick question, but I’m egotistical enough to post on the SDMB, so I’d say that I knew what it was supposed to mean even if it didn’t mean what I thought it did, which it did.
So, yes, but it was kind of complicated.