jongleur
Americannoun
-
jongleurs
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of jongleur
1755–65; < French; Middle French jougleur (perhaps by misreading, ou being read on ), Old French jogleor < Latin joculātor joker, equivalent to joculā ( rī ) to joke + -tor -tor
Explanation
A jongleur is an old-fashioned, wandering singer of songs. If you were a noble in medieval France, your household might have been entertained occasionally by singing, juggling jongleurs. A jongleur was very similar to a medieval minstrel or troubadour. While minstrels were commonly employed as household servants by wealthy families, jongleurs were itinerant entertainers who could be hired to sing, recite verses, do magic tricks, or juggle for an evening's entertainment. In fact, the word jongleur also means "juggler," from the Latin ioculator, "jester, joker, or juggler."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As a modern troubadour, mining the social perspective of the chansons réalistes, Aznavour was the inheritor of a French tradition that can be traced back to the entertainment of the medieval jongleur.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 23, 2018
The other difference is that Tagore wasn’t a jongleur, that is, a singer of his own songs, though he might well have wanted such a career among his several.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 21, 2016
He has been mad through the mountains of Cabaret with Peire Vidal, maddest jongleur of the old time.
From Time Magazine Archive
Perhaps "greatest living jongleur" would define him better, since he relies so upon borrowed accents, fantastic metres, the dress of other days.
From Time Magazine Archive
The jongleur looks at me like I'm insane.
From "The Inquisitor's Tale" by Adam Gidwitz
Not lyric poets then, or even jongleurs, but bricoleurs, who occupy a separate category because they work across genres.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 21, 2016
Medieval France had its jongleurs; Elizabethan London, its ballad singers and costermongers.
From Time Magazine Archive
The troubadour was a very different person, generally a noble who wrote poems, set them to music, and employed jongleurs to sing and play them.
From Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University by W. J. (Winton James) Baltzell
The troubadour himself must go in knightly panoply, and he and his musicians or jongleurs were usually provided with rich clothing.
From Women of Mediæval France Woman: in all ages and in all countries Vol. 5 (of 10) by Pierce Butler
The troubadours and jongleurs traveled from court to court, not only in France, but north into Germany and south into Italy, carrying with them the southern French poetry and customs.
From An Introduction to the History of Western Europe by James Harvey Robinson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
