Question: While watching the excellent 1972 picture "Cabaret", I came across an interesting quote using the expression "to make a pounce". The context it is used in can be found on [subzin.com](http://www.subzin.com/quotes/Cabaret/The+only+thing+to+do+with+virgins+is+to+make+a+ferocious+pounce "here").

While I have never heard the expression, its meaning becomes somewhat clear from the context to mean "to make advances to/at someone". When googling it, however, it seems the expression is used very rarely and there is hardly any mentioning other than the quote from the movie itself.

"Cabaret" plays in 1931 and I was therefore wondering whether the expression is just outdated or if it really is not used at all. How does it sound to a native speaker? Would you use it in an every-day conversation?

Thanks!

Answer: 
[Here's the evidence](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=make%20a%20pounce&year_start=1840&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1;,make%20a%20pounce;,c0) to support OP's suggestion that *make a pounce* was more common in the past...

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lBAHb.png)

But [here's the evidence](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=he%20pounced,he%20made%20a%20pounce&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1;,he%20pounced;,c0;.t1;,he%20made%20a%20pounce;,c0) to show that relatively speaking it was *never* actually "common"...

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HdLXE.png)

It's also worth noting this from [etymonline.com...](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pounce)

> 
> **pounce** (v.) ***1680s***, originally "to seize with the pounces," from Middle English pownse (n.) "hawk's claw" (see pounce (n.)).  
> 
> **pounce** (n.) "claw of a bird of prey," late 15c., pownse, probably from Old French ponchon "lance, javelin; spine, quill". Meaning "an act of jumping or falling upon" is from ***1825.***
> 
> 
> 

That's to say the relevant *verb* usage predates the relevant *noun* usage by well over a century. In short, there never was a time when any significant proportion of Anglophones would have used the noun-based form *to make a pounce* rather than the simple verb *to pounce*.

But the *Cabaret* scriptwriters didn't necessarily know or care about that level of detail. They just wanted an easily-understood version that would sound strange/exotic/"other" to the modern ear.
The Oxford English Dictionary has a citation for *make a pounce* from 1806, and the most recent is from 1995. This suggests that it is both well-established and fairly current. As a native speaker, I find nothing unusual about it, and its use is not limted to the making of sexual advances.