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What is another word for minstrels?

Pronunciation: [mˈɪnstɹə͡lz] (IPA)

Minstrels, also known as troubadours, are performers who sing, play instruments, and recite poetry in public places. These artists have been around for centuries and are often associated with the Middle Ages. Some other synonyms for minstrels include balladeers, wandering minstrels, jesters, and bards. These terms are all used to describe musicians who perform in a variety of locations, from courtyards and taverns to castles and royal courts. While minstrels were once revered as skilled entertainers, the term has taken on a negative connotation in modern times due to its associations with blackface performances and racial stereotypes.
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What are the hypernyms for Minstrels?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

Usage examples for Minstrels

There were always pilgrims, minstrels and pedlers.
"A Prairie Courtship"
Harold Bindloss
These petty minstrels are the same types whom Milton attacked; they are the gossips of literature who like housewives think every trivial fancy must be voiced.
"The Literature of Ecstasy"
Albert Mordell
We want a good big crowd for the minstrels; we ought to have at least two dozen fellows.
"The Crimson Sweater"
Ralph Henry Barbour

Famous quotes with Minstrels

  • I'm not comfortable with just entertaining. Although I like entertaining, I also like bringing forward the truth of our times as minstrels used to in the old days.
    Serj Tankian
  • O black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? How, in your darkness, did you come to know The power and beauty of the minstrels' lyre?
    James Weldon Johnson
  • Under queen Elizabeth, the minstrels had lost the protection of the opulent; and their credit was sunk so low in the public estimation, that, by a statute in the thirty-ninth year of her reign against vagrants, they were included among the rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and subjected to the like punishments. This edict also affected all fencers, bearwards, common players of interludes (with the exception of such players as belonged to great personages, and were authorised to play under the hand and seal of their patrons), as well as minstrels wandering abroad, jugglers, tinkers, and pedlars; and seems to have given the death's wound to the profession of the minstrels, who had so long enjoyed the public favour, and basked in the sunshine of prosperity.
    Joseph Strutt
  • The only vestige of these musical vagrants now remaining, is to be found in the blind fiddlers wandering about the country, and the ballad singers, who frequently accompany their ditties with instrumental music, especially the fiddle, vulgarly called a crowd, and the guitar. And here we may observe, that the name of fiddlers was applied to the minstrels as early at least as the fourteenth century: it occurs in the Vision of Pierce the Ploughman, where we read, "not to fare as a fydeler, or a frier, to seke feastes."
    Joseph Strutt
  • These selfish professors of religion [monks] grudged every act of munificence that was not applied to themselves, or their monasteries; and could not behold the good fortune of the minstrels without expressing their indignation; which they often did in terms of scurrilous abuse, calling them janglers, mimics, buffoons, monsters of men, and comtemptible scoffers. They also severely censured the nobility for patronizing and rewarding such a shameless set of sordid flatterers, and the populace for frequenting their exhibitions, and being delighted with their performances, which diverted them from more serious pursuits, and corrupted their morals. On the other hand, the minstrels appear to have been ready enough to give them ample occasion for censure; and, indeed, I apprehend that their own immorality and insolence contributed more to their downfal, than all the defamatory declamations of their opponents.
    Joseph Strutt

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