The meaning of hoedown that most dictionaries give is a short one: a lively social dance, usually American, usually rural, and usually involving square dancing to a fiddle. The word carries a second, looser sense as well, meaning any noisy gathering, and a third that turns up in software conference names for reasons that have almost nothing to do with dancing.
All three are set out below, along with where the word came from, what is actually danced at one, and why a hoedown meaning “an informal event where nobody is expected to have practised” is the sense a developer conference borrowed. The dance sense came first and is still much the commonest, so it is where the meaning of hoedown properly starts.
The hoedown meaning in plain terms
The hoedown meaning in its first sense is a social dance held for its own sake rather than for performance: a fiddle, a caller, a floor, and a set of figures that everybody present can be walked through in a couple of minutes. The defining feature is not the steps. It is that nobody in the room is expected to have practised.
What separates it from a ball or a dance recital is exactly that. A hoedown assumes beginners, is called aloud as it happens, and is judged by whether the room joined in rather than by how it looked. That is the property that made the word attractive to people naming other kinds of gathering.
The music is usually old-time or bluegrass string band: fiddle carrying the tune, banjo and guitar behind it, sometimes a bass. Tunes are short and repeat, because the repetition is what lets a caller fit the figures to the music.
Where the word came from: origin and first use
The origin most often given is agricultural and literal. A hoe was the commonest hand tool on a smallholding, and to “lay down the hoe” was to stop work; a gathering held once the work was down was a hoe-down. The compound is recorded in American English in the first half of the nineteenth century, first in the sense of a rustic dance and shortly afterwards as the name for the tune type played at one.
The hoe went down, and then everybody danced.
A competing origin story attaches the word to the dance step rather than the tool, with the “down” describing the stamping. It is less well evidenced and reads as a later rationalisation, which is a common pattern with folk etymology: the more picturesque explanation spreads faster than the duller one.
The spelling settled late. Hoe-down, hoe down and hoedown all appear in nineteenth-century printing, and the closed form only became standard in the twentieth. That is why searches for the word still split across three spellings today.
The square dance it names
A hoedown is danced in squares of four couples, with a caller naming figures as the tune runs. The figures themselves are a small vocabulary reused in different orders: circle left, do-si-do, allemande left, swing your partner, promenade. A caller who knows the room can build an evening out of six or seven of them.
The word does double duty in the music itself. A hoedown is also the name of a tune type: fast, in duple time, sixteen bars repeated, written to be played for exactly this. A fiddler asked for a hoedown will play a tune rather than describe an event.
The best-known use outside that world is orchestral. Aaron Copland’s ballet Rodeo ends with a movement called “Hoe-Down”, built on traditional fiddle tunes, and for a great many people that piece is the only hoedown they have knowingly heard.
How software ended up borrowing it
Because of the assumption about beginners rather than because of the dance. A conference that calls itself a hoedown is claiming a particular set of properties: informal, regional, cheap or free, nobody expected to have prepared, and the point being that the room joined in.
That is a remarkably precise description of what a small regional developer conference actually is, and the hoedown meaning transfers almost intact: it is a much better name for one than the alternatives, which tend to be either corporate or solemn. The events that borrowed the word were almost all in the American South, where the original sense is closest to living memory.
This domain carries the name for that reason: it was the name of a free regional Ruby conference that ran in the American South between 2007 and 2012, documented here at 2007 and 2008, and set among its contemporaries in the regional conference index.
Related words, and what they are not
Barn dance. Close relative, more likely to describe the venue than the music, and in British use it has largely replaced hoedown for the same kind of evening.
Square dance. The form, not the event. A hoedown is usually square dancing; square dancing is not always a hoedown, and modern club square dancing is a considerably more formal activity with its own programme of levels.
Contra dance. A different formation, in long lines rather than squares, with a different repertoire and a different social culture, although the two share callers and musicians.
Shindig, hootenanny, hoopla. All in the same family of words for a loud informal gathering, all American, and all more general: a hoedown implies dancing, the others do not.
For what the word ended up naming on this domain, conference practice covers the events themselves, and Ruby and Rails covers the language they were about.
Questions
What does hoedown mean?
A lively social dance, usually American and rural, danced in squares to fiddle music with a caller naming the figures. By extension it also means any noisy informal gathering, and it is the name of the tune type played at one.
Where does the word come from?
Most likely from laying down the hoe: a gathering held once the day’s work was finished. The compound is recorded in American English in the first half of the nineteenth century, first for the dance and shortly afterwards for the tune.
Is a hoedown the same as a square dance?
Not quite. A hoedown is usually square dancing, but square dancing is not always a hoedown. The hoedown is the event and its atmosphere; the square dance is the form. Modern club square dancing is a much more formal activity with its own levels.
What music is played at a hoedown?
Old-time or bluegrass string band: fiddle carrying the tune with banjo, guitar and sometimes bass behind it. The tunes are short and repeat, because the repetition is what lets a caller fit the figures to the music.
How is hoedown spelled?
Hoedown as one word is standard now, but hoe-down and hoe down both appear through the nineteenth century and the closed form only settled in the twentieth. That history is why the word is still searched for in all three spellings.
Why do software conferences use the word?
For the assumption rather than the dance. A hoedown assumes nobody has practised and is judged by whether the room joined in, which describes a small regional developer conference precisely, and does it without sounding either corporate or solemn.