Ballet is one specific, classical style of formal, expressive dance, usually performed to music and often staged as a theatrical production. Dance is the much broader word, covering any rhythmic movement of the body to music, from a wedding party to the tango to a school dance. In short, ballet is a type of dance, but dance is not a type of ballet.
The core difference
Ballet is a specific classical style of dance, while dance is the general word for rhythmic movement to music.
- ballet — a classical style of formal, expressive dance, or a theatrical performance of it: She has studied ballet since she was five years old.
- dance — to move the body in a rhythmic way, usually in time with music: They danced all night at the wedding.
- dance — also a form of movement performed to music, or an event where people dance together: The school dance is next Friday.
How to tell them apart
Think of dance as the category and ballet as one member of it, alongside the tango, ballroom, or a spontaneous dance at a wedding. Ballet carries expectations that dance in general does not: a classical technique, formal training, and often a theatrical staging such as a production of Swan Lake, complete with costumes and choreography built up over years of study.
Dance is also flexible in a way ballet is not, working as both a verb and a noun, and it can even describe light moving in a dance-like way, as when light danced across the surface of a lake. Ballet stays a noun describing the art form or a performance of it.
