Example sentences
tā她tiào跳wǔ舞tiào跳dé得hǎo好。
She dances well.
wǒ我men们qù去tiào跳wǔ舞。
Let's go dancing.
About this word
跳 is "to jump" and 舞 is "dance", so 跳舞 is literally "to jump a dance". The noun 舞 covers the art form and builds 舞台 (stage), 舞会 (dance party), 舞蹈 (dance as a discipline). As a verb-object compound it splits easily: 跳了一支舞, 她跳舞跳得很好. 跳 by itself just means jump, so the compound is what you use when the dance itself is the point.
The story behind the character
跳
跳 is 足 (foot) with 兆 on the right for the sound. That's the whole character. Xu Shen's definition was 跳, 蹶也, "to spring up," and he added that it also means 跃, to leap. Feet leave the ground, and that's a jump.
舞
舞 is a person with both arms spread and two feet turned outward at the bottom. The top half is 無, once the same character: a figure holding ox tails in each hand, which scholars read as a dancer. 無 then got borrowed to mean "nothing" and never came back, so 舞 added 舛, two feet, to keep the dancing for itself. Xu Shen defined 舞 as 乐也, music.