jongleur
Americannoun
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
Once, at least, has this jongleur been more than little or impudent.
From Time Magazine Archive
He has been mad through the mountains of Cabaret with Peire Vidal, maddest jongleur of the old time.
From Time Magazine Archive
The jongleur looks up at him and grins.
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 Baltzell, W. J. (Winton James)
And the said jongleurs came from the household of the bishop,” ib.
From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Power, Eileen
The men greeted the supposed purveyors of amusement with a shout; and one among them—a swarthy rascal with his head tied in a napkin—demanded that the jongleurs grace their meal with a song.
From Chivalry by Elliott, Elizabeth Shippen Green
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.
