Minstrel definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

View all »
Definitions (10)

American Heritage Dictionary (4)

noun A medieval entertainer who traveled from place to place, especially to sing and recite poetry.
noun A lyric poet.
noun A musician.

1 more from this dictionary »

Century Dictionary (2)

A musician, especially one who sings or recites to the accompaniment of instruments. Specifically, in the middle ages, the minstrels were a class who devoted themselves to the amusement of the great in castle or camp by singing ballads or songs of love and war, sometimes of their own composition, with accompaniment on the harp, lute, or other instrument. together with suitable mimicry and action, and also by storytelling, etc. The intermediate class of professional musicians from which the later minstrels sprang appeared in France as early as the eighth century, and was by the Norman conquest introduced into England, where it was assimilated with the Anglo-Saxon gleemen. Everywhere the social importance of the minstrels slowly degenerated, until in the fifteenth century they had formed themselvel generally into gilds of itinerant popular musicians and mountebanks. In England theyfell so lowin esteem that in 1597 they were classed by a statute with rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars; but in France their gilds were maintained until the revolution. See gleeman, troubadour, trouvère, and jongleur. Whan the servise was ffynisshed, the kynge Arthur and the Barouns returned in to the paleys, where-as was grete plente of mynstralles, and iogelours, and other. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), iii. 454. Ye'll gi'e the third to the minstrel That plays before the king. Young Akin (Child's Ballads, I. 184). Wake ye from your sleep of death, Minstrels and bards of other days! Scott, Bard's Incantation. But while the minstrel proper accompanied his lord to the field and shared with him the danger and the honour of his warlike exploits, the connection between him and the humbler kind of entertainer [the jongleur], who was still the servant of the multitude rather than of a particular lord, cannot have been wholly forgotten. A. W. Ward, Eng. Dram. Lit., I. 13.
Hence Any poet or musician. [Poetical.]3, Originally, one of a class of singers of negro melodies and delineators of life on the Southern plantations which originated in the United States about 1830: called negro minstrels, although they are usually white men whose faces and hands are blackened with burnt cork. The characteristic feature of such a troupe or band is the middle-man or interlocutor, who leads the talk and gives the cues, and the two end-men, who usually perform on the tambourine and the bones, and between whom the indispensable conundrums and jokes are exchanged. As now constituted, a negro-minstrel troupe retains but little of its original character except the black faces and the old jokes.

GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

WordNet (3)

Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

He was attired as a minstrel, his viol slung across his breast, a garb which obtained for its possessor free entrance alike into camp and castle, hall and bower, to all parties, to all lands, friendly or hostile, as it might be. — The Days of Bruce Vol 1 A Story from Scottish History
For the minstrel was singing a sweet and solemn strain, which told of the home-coming of the Greeks from Troy, and of all the disasters which befell them on the way. — Stories from the Odyssey
"Within, a warrior fighteth / like to wild forest boar; Hight the same is Volker, / and a minstrel is also; To pass the demon scatheless / I to fortune's favor owe 2002 Evil sound his melodies, / his strokes of bow are red, Yea, beneath his music / full many a knight lies dead. — The Nibelungenlied Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original
This dash of the monk and the minstrel is a sure sign. — Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith
However fond my lord and lady were of the ballad, the place of the minstrel was at the lower end of the hall. — The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner

More examples »

Add a related word »
Related

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context

musician · bard · magician · juggler · dancer · beggar · sculptor · shepherd · gypsy · novelist · scribe · acrobat

Word Family

minstrel: minstrels

Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English minstral, from Old French menestrel, servant, entertainer, from Late Latin ministeriālis, official in the imperial household, from Latin ministerium, ministry; see ministry.

Century Dictionary (1)

from Middle English minstrel, mynstrelle, minstral, mynstral, menstral, munstral, ministral, menestral, from Old French menestral, menestrel, menesterel, French ménestrel = Provencal menestral = Spanish menestral, menestril, ministril = Portuguese ministrel, menestrel, menistrel = Italian ministrello, minestrello, from Middle Latin ministralis (also, after Roman, ministrellus), a servant, retainer, jester, singer, player, from Latin minister, a servant, attendant: see minister. Cf. Middle Latin ministerialis in same sense, from ministerium, service: see ministerial.

minstrel

View all »
Definitions (10)

American Heritage Dictionary (4)

Century Dictionary (2)

GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

WordNet (3)

Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

Tags

Stats

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

Add a related word »
Related

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context

Word Family

Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Century Dictionary (1)

Pronunciations
Record your own »

Charts

Recently looked up

Recent Favorites

Recent Pronunciations

minstrel

View all » Definitions (10)

View all » Examples (50)

Tags

Stats

stop updating On Twitter

Photos from

Add a related word » Related

synonyms:

Etymologies (2)

Pronunciations Record your own »

Charts

Recently looked up

Recent Favorites

Recent Pronunciations

View all »
Definitions (10)

View all »
Examples (50)

stop updating
On Twitter

Add a related word »
Related

Pronunciations
Record your own »