A foxtrot is a partner dance for a smart room: you hold someone and travel across the floor, mixing short quick steps with long slow ones. It is not a jump-up-and-down dance; it glides. People also call the music a foxtrot when it is written for that dance — a steady, walking kind of tune. It was a huge social dance about a hundred years ago. Older people may still light up at the name; many young people only meet it in films, wedding classes, or dance clubs. Though actually, teachers do not all agree what counts as a “true” foxtrot: there is a slow, sliding style and a quicker one, and the line between them is messier than a textbook makes it look. In ordinary talk the word feels a little old-fashioned and formal, not street slang.