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
Once, at least, has this jongleur been more than little or impudent.
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
But the merrymakers in nunneries were not necessarily strange jongleurs or secular folk.
From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Power
Accordingly, though we know if possible even less of the names of the jongleurs than of those of the trouvères, we know a good deal about their methods.
From The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) by George Saintsbury
Nor could the character of their composers and professors be substantially altered, so that we must not be surprised to find in Spain the trouvères and jongleurs of France as trovadores and juglares.
From Legends & Romances of Spain by Lewis Spence
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