Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Formerly, a professional jester; also, a minstrel. See juggler and jongleur.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A jester; a joker.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A jester; a joker.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin See juggler.

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Examples

  • Italians and the Spaniards, signifying mimus, scurra, joculator — a mimic, a jester, a player of tricks.

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • The _joculator_ or _jongleur_ Taillefer, who was with

    Harvard Classics Volume 28 Essays English and American Various

  • Normandy, by his fool, _Goles_; and, in Domesday book, mention is made of _Berdin joculator regis_; and though this term sometimes denoted a minstrel, evidence might be adduced to prove, that in this instance it signified a buffoon.

    A History of Pantomime R. J. Broadbent

  • The word jougleur, sometimes by mistake written jongleur, is derived from the latin _joculator_.

    History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange 1873

  • There, one joculator exhibited the antics of his well-tutored ape; there, another eclipsed the attractions of the baboon by a marvellous horse that beat a tabor with his forefeet; there, the more sombre

    The Last of the Barons — Volume 01 Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

  • One of our ancient monarchs is said to have given three parishes to his _joculator_; I gave only three farms to mine.

    Tales and Novels — Volume 04 Maria Edgeworth 1808

  • The joculator or jongleur Taillefer, who was with William the Conqueror’s army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so said the tradition, singing ‘of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and of the vassals who died at Roncevaux’; and it is suggested that in the Chanson de Roland by one Turoldus or Théroulde, a poem preserved in a manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chant which Taillefer sang.

    The Study of Poetry 1909

  • There, one joculator exhibited the antics of his well-tutored ape; there, another eclipsed the attractions of the baboon by a marvellous horse that beat a tabor with his forefeet; there, the more sombre Tregetour, before a table raised upon a lofty stage, promised to cut off and refix the head of a sad-faced little boy, who in the mean time was preparing his mortal frame for the operation by apparently larding himself with sharp knives and bodkins.

    The Last of the Barons — Complete Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

  • _troubadour_, the _jongleur_, and the _joculator_, are natural productions of all time, in a certain proportion to the bulk of their kind.

    Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 Various 1836

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