also acrobate. [a. mod. Fr. acrobate; f. Gr. ἀκρόβατος walking on tiptoe, climbing aloft, f. ἄκρος point, or highest + -βατος vbl. adj., f. vb. stem βα- to go. Used in pl. acrobates as a term of Classical Antiq. before the adoption of the modern word from Fr.] A rope-dancer; a performer of daring gymnastic feats and evolutions; a tumbler. lit. and fig.
1825. Fosbroke, Encycl. Antiq. (1843), II. 673. Acrobates … were Rope Dancers of which there were four kinds.
1845. [T. Martin], Bon Gaultier Ballads, 99. And the Clown in haste arising from the footstool where he sat Notified the first appearance of the famous Acrobat.
1846. Punch, 24 Jan., 52. We have no doubt that the performances at St. Stephen’s during the coming session will be enlivened by feats of agility and strength on the part of the three great Political Acrobats.
1859. W. S. Coleman, Woodl. Heaths & Hedges (1866), 98. Those little ornithological acrobats the Tit-mice.
1860. Cornhill Mag., March, 275. We can go and purchase Noah’s arks and flexible acrobats for our children.
1879. Daily Tel., 30 May. The acrobat of to-day is a skilled professor of the trapeze and the parallel bars; he flies through the air, or comes careering from a hole in the ceiling.
