jongleur
Americannoun
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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
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
Once, at least, has this jongleur been more than little or impudent.
From Time Magazine Archive
But you know, being a jongleur, you gotta know people.
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
During the hour after supper Barty, perched on a barrel in the court-yard, saw jongleurs and dancers, with bells on head and neck and heels, capering in the flare of the torches.
From In the Days of the Guild by Louise Lamprey
But the distinction was not sharply drawn, although in general the minstrels were considered to afford a higher form of entertainment than did the jongleurs.
From Women of England by Bartlett Burleigh James
The jongleurs of the Middle Ages were the immediate descendants of the Roman mimes and histrions; their declamations, accompanied by gestures, at least tended towards the dramatic form.
From A History of French Literature Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. by Edmund Gosse
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.
