Obs. Forms: 6 cinquepasse, cinquopas(se, sinkapace, 6–7 sinquepace, 7 cinquepace, cinque-a-pace, cinqu-a-pace, sinke-a-pace. [In 16th c. cinquepas = F. cinq five pas paces. Littré has cinq pas et trois visages [i.e., five paces and three faces] sorte d’ancienne danse.]
A kind of lively dance much used for some time before and after 1500. From the name it is inferred that ‘the steps were regulated by the number five’ (Nares); and its identity with the galliard appears to be established by a passage referring to the latter in Sir J. Davis’s Poem on Dancing, st. lxvii.,
‘Five was the number of the music’s feet Which still the dance did with five paces meet.’
c. 1570. Thynne, Pride & Lowl. (1841), 52. Or of his daunce observed cinquopas … His wyfe Mycholl ne liked of the grace.
1581. Rich, Farewell Milit. Profess. (1846), 4. Our galliardes are so curious … so full of trickes and tournes, that he whiche hath no more but the plaine sinque-pace, is no better accoumpted of then a verie bongler.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., I. Divers New Exp., 40. Breake off in the midst of a rough Cinquepasse.
1596. Harington, Apol. Ajax. They descanted of the new Faerie Queene … and the greatest fault they could find in it was that the last verse disordered their mouthes, and was like a tricke of seventeene in a sinkapace.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, II. i. 77. Then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sinkes into his graue. Ibid. (1601), Twel. N., I. iii. 139. I would not so much as make water but in a Sinke-a-pace.
1637. Nabbes, Microcosm., in Dodsley, O. Pl., IX. 143. Now do your sinque pace cleanly.
1644–7. Cleveland, Char. Lond. Diurn., 30. Twiss blows the Scotch pipes, and … Puts on the traces, and treads Cin-qu-pace [1651 Cinqu-a-paice; 1677 cinque-a-pace].
