merengue

1. A ballroom dance of Dominican and Haitian folk origin, characterized by a sliding step.
2. Music for this dance, in rapid 2/4 time.

[American Spanish, from Spanish, meringue, from French méringue.]

For more information on merengue, visit Britannica.com.

Not only can you eat merengue, you can dance it off. It's a simple step that has been described as going up the stairs sideways: you step on one foot and pull the other to it, again and again.

The dance is known as the merengue to English speakers and to the Spanish speakers of the Dominican Republic, and as meringue to the French speakers of Haiti. The two nations, which share the island of Hispaniola, share an enthusiasm for the dance too, and both claim to have originated it.

The merengue is a lively dance, but when you dance it you look like you're limping, which is an explanation the Dominicans give of its origin. In the nineteenth century, they say, a hero returned home from battle wounded in the leg, and the townspeople celebrated his victory by limping with him. Or, some say, it's the limping movement slaves made when chained together and working in the fields to the beat of a drum. Haitians simply say the Dominicans got it from them.

Whoever started it, merengue is now said to be the most popular dance music in all of Latin America, and it has been noticed by English speakers too, at least since it was mentioned in a book in 1936. Traditionally in merengue, saxophones play very fast percussive notes, and the basic rhythms come from two West African percussion instruments, a two-ended drum known as the tambora and the guiro, a gourd scraped by a stick. Modern merengues make use of a great variety of instruments and styles, traditional and modern, including hip-hop and rap.

If merengue came from Haiti, which was the dominant country on Hispaniola at the time of the dance's origin, we can credit the word to Haitian Creole French, which is an official language of the country, along with French. There are about seven million inhabitants of Haiti, and while perhaps 5 percent of them speak French, they all speak the French-based, African-influenced Creole. The word merengue comes from the familiar French confectionery word and suggests the lightness and quickness of the dance. No other words of Haitian Creole French have stepped into English.