The hornpipe is any of several dance forms and their associated tunes, played and danced in Great Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The dance is still performed in competition. George Frideric Handel's hornpipe from Water Music is one of his most famous compositions.

Hornpipes are a class of wind instruments. One candidate for the specific hornpipe that might have leant its name to the dance is the pib-corn. There is no clear evidence the dance was named after any instrument, and many alternative etymologies have been proposed.

References to hornpipes abound in literature. Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century translation of The Romaunt of the Rose mentions the hornpipe as a Cornish instrument. In a 1609 pamphlet titled Old Meg of Hereford-shire, the hornpipe dance is described as a product of Lancashire. Michael Drayton dwells on "Lancastrian nymphs" dancing the hornpipe in Poly-Olbion (1612). In The King's Entertainment at Welbeck (1633), Ben Jonson describes it as a dance native to Nottingham and Darbishire.

The hornpipe became a regular feature of English theater. Dancers would perform hornpipes between the acts of larger stage works. Many tunes were named after the dancers who performed them: Fishar's Hornpipe, Aldridge's Hornpipe, Richar's Hornpipe, Miss Baker's Hornpipe, West's Hornpipe, Durang's Hornpipe, etc. One of the standard dances became the "sailor's hornpipe", where the performer would appear as Jack Tar and emulate the life aboard ship. By the 19th century, the ability to dance a hornpipe was a basic part of an entertainer's toolkit.

A legend took hold that reversed the origin of the hornpipe. In some tellings it was invented by sailors stuck in the doldrums. In fact, the popular dance was adopted by sailors like Captain Cook who recognized it as an effective exercise routine aboard ships which have limited space. It soon became a popular pastime and an official part of Royal Navy training.

Charles Dickens mentions the hornpipe in Dombey & Son and Martin Chuzzlewit. He was also a skilled dancer of the sailor's hornpipe. Thomas Hardy describes country dances in the seventh chapter of Under the Greenwood Tree (1872). In a 1926 letter, he recalls that he must have had in mind the "College Hornpipe", among other dances. He also included his notation of the hornpipe as he recalled it six decades later.

The country dance form of the hornpipe differs from the solo step dance. Couples execute a series of steps and turns in an endless variety of combinations. In an 1816 dance manual, the "College Hornpipe" requires, among other movements, the "top couple to swing with the right hand round the second couple, then swing with the left hand". In the 18th century, dancing masters were widely employed to teach these dances to English gentility. There are hornpipes in Beauchamp-Feuillet notation.

Solo hornpipes were typically danced with folded arms as a display of strength. One dance historian described the posture as a demonstration of the English spirit, "The upper part of the body is kept in a state of calm repose, while the lower limbs are executing the most complicated, rapid, and difficult move-ments. Is not all this typical of an ideally English trait? To appear calm and collected amid circumstances calculated to induce a condition of physical and mental agitation."