Meaning of the word class act

The phrase itself is highly contextual. Sometimes it’s used as a high compliment for someone who is respectable and gracious:

Coach Eaves was a class act. I really admire coaches who do it right, don’t go crazy on the sidelines, and set a good example for others.
_{(Rick Wood, 40 Seasons: The Life of a High School Basketball Coach, 2011)}

Most guys would have forgotten all about a minor moment like that, but not Jimmy Stewart. He was a class act all the way.
_{(Tony Curtis, American Prince: A Memoir, 2008)}

Sometimes it’s used to describe someone’s stylistic appearance, or someone who has both intelligence and charm:

She was a very serious student, both intelligent and beautiful. As they say, she was a class act. To get her attention or a smile from her was extremely hard. She had utter self-confidence, great poise, and an elegant walk.
_{(Vartan Gregorian, The Road to Home: My Life and Times, 2008)}

Sometimes it’s used to describe someone’s overall classiness, in a way that sets them apart from their peers:

She was a class act. He was used to hanging around with floozies, but his taste was changing. He liked the air of eloquence that rested on her.
_{(Inez Brinkley, Embracing the Light, 2006)}

Janelle had street sex appeal, the stark sexuality of a cocktail waitress exposing some tits and ass as she bends over to serve your drink. But this dame was a class act, a woman wrapped in pearls and sable getting out of a Rolls Royce. My first impression of her was of a cheetah with a diamond choker…
_{(Harold Robbins, Sin City, 2003)}

In the context you mention:

The club is lucky to have such a class act…

I’d intepret that to mean that whatever act is performing wouldn’t necessarily be expected to be seen in such a venue. Perhaps it’s a folk singer with the voice of an angel playing in a dingy nightclub, but the expression could be used to describe a variety of circumstances.

In the setting of a club, I’d interpret a class act to be something that is more refined than raw, more sophisticated than cheesy. I would expect the performance to have broad appeal to a wide audience, as opposed to a niche act. I would expect the class act to be more stylishly dressed than other performers at the club.

English[edit]

Noun[edit]

class act (plural class acts)

1. An excellent performance.

   • 2017 September 18, “Whangara Mai Tawhiti does it again”, in The Gisborne Herald‎^[1]:

     Tairawhiti Cultural Development Trust chairman Maui Tangohau said it was a class act by the national champions.

2. Someone or something whose performance is excellent.

   • 2021 March 31, Phil McNulty, “England 2-1 Poland: What shape are Gareth Southgate’s side in?”, in BBC Sport‎^[2]:

     Rice is maturing at such a rate that he is now indispensable. Yes, these qualifiers may not be the most exacting examinations but he has also looked a class act at club level under manager David Moyes this season.

3. (sometimes sarcastically) Someone or something who is generally well-mannered, conscientious, etc.

   You can count on Sam to help out afterwards, he’s a real class act.

   Oh yeah, they’re a real class act; they left their garbage all over the grass.

Synonyms[edit]

• (someone whose performance exhibits conscientiousness): mensch
• (someone whose performance exhibits extreme skillfulness): virtuoso

Antonyms[edit]

• boor

See also[edit]

• high-class
• top drawer

Further reading[edit]

• “class act”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Last Updated:
1 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about a noun phrase that lauds an admirable person, team, or organization. For other uses, see Class Act (disambiguation).

A class act is a performance or personal trait or behavior that is distinctive and of high quality. As a noun phrase, it is typically used to refer to a single person, a team – such as a performing artists working together – or an organization.

Usage and contemporary etymology[edit]

In sports[edit]

In sports, a «class act» would be an athlete who not only performs exceptionally well, but also exhibits a range of other admirable qualities, on and off the field.

In dance[edit]

In dance during the jazz age and the swing era (the first half of the 20th century) – tap dance in particular – a class act was, and still is, a complimentary reference to a dance team that exhibits precision, elegant dress, detached coolness, flawless execution, and dignity.^[1] In 1946, after serving in the Army, Charles «Honi» Coles and Cholly Atkins collaborated as a dance duo that became highly acclaimed. British dance critic Edward Thorpe, in his 1989 book, Black Dance, described Coles and Atkins as …

the ultimate example of what other protagonists of American vernacular dance call «a class act,» and there can be no higher praise than that.^[2]

For black dancers of the jazz age and the swing era, the noun phrase, «class act,» had a more nuanced meaning. According to Cholly Atkins, some performers and managers harbored stereotypical preferences of how black male dancers and musical comedy dance teams should dress and perform. To those performers and managers, a class act was more apropos for white male entertainers. Black entertainers who did it were likely to be perceived as defiant. Atkins, in his 2001 book, Class Act (co-authored with Jacqui Malone), stated that,

If they [white dancers] were singers or comics, they didn’t like the fact that we were also doing those things as part of our act.

— Cholly Atkins (2001)^[1]

Against the backdrop of dance teams working in the blackface tradition, Atkins was one in a long list of virtuoso black male dance artists who rejected the minstrel show stereotypes of the grinning-and-dancing clowns … lazy, incompetent fools … and dandies who thought only of flashy clothes, flirtatious courting, new dances, and good looks.^[3] Atkins’ and his peers aspired to pure artistic expression driven by a desire for respectability and equality on the American concert stage.^[4]

Class act syles, in tap[edit]

Marshall Stearns, in the 1964 film-made-for-TV, Over the Top to Bebop, stated that the class act «started with the soft-shoe and the sand and the shuffle; and it grew up and became a dance in which you showed elegance and dignity and precision. And every class act in the thirties and forties had their own soft-shoe.»^[5][6]

Selected «class acts»[edit]

In tap dance[edit]

• The Cotton Club Boys, from 1934 to 1940, were the Cotton Club’s stock class act dance troupe
• John «Bubbles» Sublett and Ford «Buck» Washington
• Cholly Atkins and Honi Coles
• Willie Covan and Leonard Ruffin
• Eddie Sledge and Fred Davis (aka Fred and Sledge)
• Charles Cook and Ernest Brown
• Eddie Rector (1890–1962)^[7]
• Dickie Wells, Jimmy Mordecai, Earnest Taylor
• Nicholas brothers^[8]
• Gary Lambert «Pete» Nugent (1909–1973), Irving «Peaches» Beamon (born 1911), Duke Miller (1910–1937)^[9][8]

In vaudeville[edit]

• Rosamond Johnson and Bob Cole, vaudeville duo that began in 1902^[10]

Contrasting noun phrase[edit]

A «flash act,» in tap dance, includes acrobatic movements. The Nicholas brothers, who famously performed class acts, also did flash acts.^[1]

References[edit]