means The technique in ballet of supporting the whole body on the tips of fully extended feet, usually wearing specially reinforced toe shoes called pointe shoes.

from Straight from French pointe, meaning "point" or "tip," which traces back to Latin punctum, "a thing that has been pricked or pierced" (from pungere, "to prick" — the same root that gives us puncture and point). The dance term arrived with the rise of Romantic ballet in the early 19th century, when ballerinas first rose onto their toes to look as though they were floating just off the earth.