minstrelsy
Americannoun
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the art or practice of a minstrel.
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minstrels' songs, ballads, etc..
a collection of Scottish minstrelsy.
noun
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the art of a minstrel
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the poems, music, or songs of a minstrel
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a troupe of minstrels
Etymology
Origin of minstrelsy
1275–1325; Middle English minstralcie (< Anglo-French menestralsie ) < Anglo-Latin ministralcia, menestralcia. See minstrel, -cy
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.
“For example, the ‘Amistad’ story happened exactly at the time when minstrelsy was starting to become the principal form of entertainment,” Davis says.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 21, 2024
Her love of folklore, dialect and country people set her apart from many of her peers, who thought she was practicing minstrelsy.
From Washington Post • Jan. 21, 2022
“Nothing looms larger in American music than African American music,” he writes, “real, racially fantasized and one-drop-rule conjoined, from blackface minstrelsy to spirituals, ragtime, jazz, blues, rock, soul, hip-hop and E.D.M.”
From New York Times • Jun. 22, 2021
The perception of the song as expressing nostalgia for the Old South helped it remain a staple of minstrelsy long after the Civil War.
From Salon • May 1, 2021
Black minstrelsy was the first large-scale opportunity for African Americans to enter show business.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
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.
