subs. (common).—Balancing on one foot and moving the other back and forwards without taking a step. [A preliminary in military drill, the pons asinorum of the raw recruit.] Also (more loosely) ‘marking time’: that is, lifting the feet alternately without advancing.
1840. Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, Sept., p. 607. Whether the remarkable evolution [the GOOSE STEP] was called … from the nature of the operation requiring the exhibitor to stand on one leg, in imitation of the above-named animal, I am totally at a loss to say.
1890. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 7 Nov. He won his spurs at Punchestown before he had mastered the GOOSE STEP.
