BALLET is more particularly used for a kind of comic dance, consisting of a series of several airs of different kinds of movements, which together represent some subject or action. They are performed chiefly by masks representing sylvans, tritons, nymphs, shepherds, and the like; and consist of three parts, the entry, figure, and the retreat. The word is of Greek origin, formed from βαλλω, jacere, to cast, throw, or toss; whence also in writers of the middle age, we find ballationes for saltationes, dancings; and ballare for saltare, to dance.