tickey-draai, noun

Forms:
tiekiedraai, tikiedraaiShow more Also tiekiedraai, tikiedraai, tikkiedraai.
Origin:
AfrikaansShow more Partial translation of Afrikaans tiekiedraai, tiekie see tickey + draai turn, twirl.
1.
a. A fast dance-movement derived from Cape square-dancing, in which couples link hands and spin round on one spot on their toes, leaning away from each other; a dance including this movement. Also attributive, and transferred sense. See also vastrap noun sense 1 a.
1929 J.G. Van Alphen Jan Venter 251An occasional rollicking set of dancers in which couples indulged in the ‘tickey-draai’, i.e. a rapid top-like spinning in one spot.
1934 C.P. Swart Supplement to Pettman. 176Tikiedraai, In dancing, to turn on one’s toes like a tickey that is spun round. The term is also applied to dancing picnic dances.
1936 E. Rosenthal Old-Time Survivals 28The ‘tikkie-draai’ or ‘three-penny turn’ is one of the vigorous, uproarious steps favoured from the old days.
1938 George & Knysna Herald 19 Oct. 1Give me a good old tickey-draai every time.
1952 Drum Dec. 18The ‘Tikkie Draai..where a single couple swing at the centre of the ring while the other dancers clap hands in rhythm...The ‘tikkie draai’ (making sixty revolutions with your partner for a minute without getting dizzy!).
1959 A. Delius Last Division 76It was like the annual Moffies’ dance Where a zoo and a mad-house take their chance Stomping around up there on high Letting it go in a tickey draai.
1970 M. Hobson Informant, TzaneenIt is fun to see the ostrich chicks doing the ‘tiekie-draai’.
1972 N. Henshilwood Cape Childhood 56There were vigorous tickiedraais, gay moments when a man swung his partner round and round on one spot.
1974 D. Rooke Margaretha de la Porte 15The child in the centre had to choose a partner and then whirl, holding on by the tips of hooked fingers — this was called the tickey draai.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 208Many African musicians had absorbed Afrikaans styles such as vastrap while serving in Afrikaans households in the country...They enjoyed playing tickey draai, adding African melody to Afrikaans rhythms and chord structure. Tickey draai was played on solo guitar at first, but by the mid-1920’s small Coloured-Xhosa string and concertina bands were also performing it for private African concerts called ‘socials.’
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 440Tickey Draai, A Coloured-Afrikaans dance derived from Cape square dancing in which couples turn rapidly around in one spot.
1983 Daily Dispatch 7 Mar. 1By evening time, it was tiekiedraai and boerewors time.
1987 C.L. Kgaphola in Staffrider Vol.6 No.4, 48Leave your Molotov cocktail at home and join in the tikkie draai.
b. figurative. Interaction; fast movement; spinning. Also attributive.
1975 Drum 8 Aug. 1For their tickey-draai 200 verkramptes got together at Verwoerdburg.
1982 Voice 21 Mar. 4The new Dr Ja-Nee leftwing (of a rightwing) is bound to end up in lots of tikkie-draais and other political dances in the Broederbond, Afrikaans-Ja Baas Pers, business et al.
1983 Sunday Times 31 July (Mag. Sect.) 26Much of modern life consists of learning to hitchhike through the material advances of our age, an endless tiekiedraai with technology.
1989 Sunday Times 29 Oct. 28The Broederbond’s political tiekiedraai act to improve its image, showing a bit of ankle here and there.
2. Music. The fast, rhythmical music played to accompany this dance; draai sense 2. Also attributive.
1949 E. Hellmann Handbk on Race Rel. 620The coloured people at the Cape have for so long reflected the culture of their European progenitors that no indigenous music of theirs now exists, their principal contribution to the art being the instrumental idiom of the ‘tickey-draai’ since they and the Malays, during the epoch of slavery, provided most of the dance music for their European overlords.
1963 A. Fugard Blood Knot (1968) 94He could do a vastrap, that man, non-stop, on all strings, at once. He knew the lot. Polka, tickey-draai, opskud en uitkap, ek sê...that was jollification for you.
1976 Sunday Times 11 July 20At an impromptu performance..the happy centenarian danced for about 10 minutes while playing a ‘tiekkie draai’ on his mouth organ.
1978 J. Bauling Walk in Shadows 129One of their guests, an Afrikaans farmer, had brought his accordion and was providing some rollicking tiekie-draai and volkspele music.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 54In Kimberley..Coloured guitarists perfected the Cape style called tickey draai (Afrikaans: ‘turn on a tickey..)...Coloured performers brought tickey draai playing and dancing to other towns in the Eastern Cape.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 208Tickey draai was played on solo guitar at first, but by the mid-1920’s small Coloured-Xhosa string and concertina bands were also performing it.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 441Tickey Draai,..A guitar style popular between 1880 and 1930, used to accompany this (sc. the tickeydraai) and other black dances in the Eastern Cape, Kimberley, and Johannesburg.
1981 Sunday Times 15 Mar. 21A concertina tikkiedraai going on all night in the dining room just below.
1990 Weekend Post 19 May (Leisure) 5A musical diet ranging from bebop and marabi to vastrap and tiekiedraai.
A fast dance-movement derived from Cape square-dancing, in which couples link hands and spin round on one spot on their toes, leaning away from each other; a dance including this movement. Also attributive, and transferred sense.
Interaction; fast movement; spinning. Also attributive.
The fast, rhythmical music played to accompany this dance; draai sense 2. Also attributive.
Derivatives:
Hence tickey-draai  intransitive verb, to dance the tickey-draai; tickey-draaing  verbal noun, spinning and whirling.
1966 I. Vaughan These Were my Yesterdays 112Swinging himself and his partner wildly around in his own idea of the Charleston with much ‘tickey-draaing’!
1985 Drum July 24Wine is flowing freely as they tickiedraai to the twanging of guitars.
1994 Weekly Mail & Guardian 13 May 9One black woman..started twirling around wildly...‘Where did you learn to tiekiedraai so good?’ a bystander asked. ‘In my boerestaat!’ she laughed back.
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19291994