Polka

How to spell polka

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce polka

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does polka mean?

1. nounA lively dance for couples in quick duple time, of Bohemian origin, or the music written for it.
2. nounUsed attributively to name a pattern of regularly spaced round dots, as in a polka dot fabric.

Polka in a sentence

• The band struck up a fast polka and couples filled the floor.

• She chose a red polka dot dress for the summer party.

• She learned to dance the polka at her grandparents' wedding anniversary.

• The curtains had a cheerful polka dot design in blue and white.

Where does polka come from?

Language of origin: Other

Polka is a lively couple dance in quick duple time that swept Europe in the 1830s and 1840s after starting among the peasants of Bohemia, in what is now the Czech Republic. The most widely accepted explanation traces the name to the Czech word polka, meaning 'a Polish woman', possibly chosen to honour Polish patriots; a rival theory links it to the Czech pulka, meaning 'half', a nod to the short half-steps that make up the dance. From Czech the word passed into French and German as the dance craze spread, and English adopted it around 1844 when polka parties became a fashionable sensation in London and beyond. The same root later gave us 'polka dot', the regular spotted pattern, which simply borrowed the dance's trendy name during the height of its popularity. Because the spelling keeps the unusual 'lk' cluster from its Slavic origin, English writers sometimes drop the silent feel of the 'l' and stumble over the ending, which favours 'a' rather than 'er'.

How the word is built

• polka (whole word, from Czech; no separable prefix or suffix)