Pŏl'kă, n.

(20), n. [Bohem. pulka, half. See infra. Or perhaps from Slav. polka, i. e., properly, a Polish woman; but see infra.] A dance of Polish origin, but now popular every where. It is performed by two persons in common time.

☞ Somewhere about the year 1831, a young peasant girl, who was in the service of a citizen of Elbeteinitz, in Bohemia, performed a dance of her own invention one Sunday afternoon, for her own special delectation, and sang a suitable tune to it. The schoolmaster, Joseph Neruda, who happened to be present, wrote down the melody, and the new dance was soon after publicly performed for the first time in Elbeteinitz. About 1835, it made its entrance into Prague, and then obtained the name of polka, from the Bohemian word pulka, or half, from the half step prevalent in it. Four years later, it was carried to Vienna by a Prague band. In 1840, a dancing-master of Prague danced the polka, with great success, at the Odeon, in Paris, whence it found its way with extraordinary rapidity to every dancing-room. Czerwiński.