minstrel

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: min=strel

CIDE DICTIONARY

minstrel, n. [OE. minstrel, menestral, OF. menestrel, fr. LL. ministerialis servant, workman (cf. ministrellus harpist), fr. L. ministerium service. See Ministry, and cf. Ministerial.].

 In the Middle Ages, one of an order of men who subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sang verses to the accompaniment of a harp or other instrument; in modern times, a poet; a bard; a singer and harper; a musician.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

minstrel, n.
1 a medieval singer or musician, esp. singing or reciting poetry.
2 hist. a person who entertained patrons with singing, buffoonery, etc.
3 (usu. in pl.) a member of a band of public entertainers with blackened faces etc., performing songs and music ostensibly of Negro origin.

Etymology

ME f. OF menestral entertainer, servant, f. Prov. menest(ai)ral officer, employee, musician, f. LL ministerialis official, officer: see MINISTERIAL

DEVIL DICTIONARY

minstrel

adj. Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with a color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood can bear.

THESAURUS

minstrel

Broadway musical, Meistersinger, Parnassian, Singspiel, arch-poet, artist, artiste, ballad maker, ballad opera, ballad singer, balladeer, balladist, balladmonger, ballet, ballet divertissement, bard, beat poet, bucoliast, chorus show, comedy ballet, comic opera, concert artist, dance drama, elegist, epic poet, executant, fili, folk singer, folk-rock singer, gleeman, grand opera, idyllist, imagist, interpreter, jongleur, laureate, librettist, light opera, lyric drama, maestro, major poet, maker, minnesinger, minor poet, minstrel show, minstrelsy, modernist, music drama, music maker, musical, musical comedy, musical stage, musical theater, musician, occasional poet, odist, opera, opera ballet, opera bouffe, opera buffa, operetta, pastoral poet, pastoralist, performer, player, poet, poet laureate, poetress, rhapsode, rhapsodist, satirist, scald, scop, serenader, singer, skald, soloist, song-and-dance act, song-play, sonneteer, street singer, strolling minstrel, symbolist, troubador, troubadour, trouveur, trovatore, tunester, vers libriste, vers-librist, virtuosa, virtuoso, wait, wandering minstrel

ROGET THESAURUS

minstrel

Poetry

N poetry, poetics, poesy, Muse, Calliope, tuneful Nine, Parnassus, Helicon, Pierides, Pierian spring, versification, rhyming, making verses, prosody, orthometry, poem, epic, epic poem, epopee, epopoea, ode, epode, idyl, lyric, eclogue, pastoral, bucolic, dithyramb, anacreontic, sonnet, roundelay, rondeau, rondo, madrigal, canzonet, cento, monody, elegy, amoebaeum, ghazal, palinode, dramatic poetry, lyric poetry, opera, posy, anthology, disjecta membra poetae song, ballad, lay, love song, drinking song, war song, sea song, lullaby, music, nursery rhymes, doggerel, Hudibrastic verse, prose run mad, macaronics, macaronic verse, leonine verse, runes, canto, stanza, distich, verse, line, couplet, triplet, quatrain, strophe, antistrophe, verse, rhyme, assonance, crambo, meter, measure, foot, numbers, strain, rhythm, accentuation, dactyl, spondee, trochee, anapest, hexameter, pentameter, Alexandrine, anacrusis, antispast, blank verse, ictus, elegiacs, elegiac verse, elegaic meter, elegaic poetry, poet, poet laureate, laureate, bard, lyrist, scald, skald, troubadour, trouvere, minstrel, minnesinger, meistersinger, improvisatore, versifier, sonneteer, rhymer, rhymist, rhymester, ballad monger, runer, poetaster, genus irritabile vatum, poetic, poetical, lyric, lyrical, tuneful, epic, dithyrambic, metrical, a catalectin, elegiac, iambic, trochaic, anapestic, amoebaeic, Melibean, skaldic, Ionic, Sapphic, Alcaic, Pindaric, a poem round and perfect as a star, Dichtung und Wahrheit, furor poeticus, his virtues formed the magic of his song, I do but sing because I must, I learnt life from the poets, licentia vatum, mutum est pictura poema, O for a muse of fire!, sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge, the true poem is the poet's mind, Volk der Dichter und Denker, wisdom married to immortal verse.

Musician

N musician, artiste, performer, player, minstrel, bard, accompanist, accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist, harper, fiddler, fifer, trumpeter, piper, drummer, catgut scraper, band, orchestral waits, vocalist, melodist, singer, warbler, songster, chaunter, chauntress, songstress, cantatrice, choir, quire, chorister, chorus, chorus singer, liedertafel, nightingale, philomel, thrush, siren, bulbul, mavis, Pierides, sacred nine, Orpheus, Apollo, the Muses Erato, Euterpe, Terpsichore, tuneful nine, tuneful quire, composer, performance, execution, touch, expression, solmization, playing, musical, adagio, andante.