jongleur means an itinerant entertainer in medieval England and France; roles included song, music, acrobatics etc.; a troubadour. It carries an Arena rating of 1688, earned across 40 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, jongleur ranks #679 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #1,053 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #1,109 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,376 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say.
jongleur is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɑŋ.ɡlɚ/.
Why “jongleur” is a great word
JONGLEUR — [Noun] An itinerant medieval entertainer in England and France, whose repertoire encompassed singing, instrumental music, storytelling, acrobatics, and juggling. Borrowed from French jongleur, from Old French jogleour, from Latin ioculātor ("jester, joker, or juggler"), from ioculārī ("to jest, joke"). Doublet of juggler. Unlike the "troubadour," a courtly composer of lyric poetry, or the "mountebank," a fraudulent quack, the jongleur was a versatile generalist of the roadside. He is the flickering silhouette against a barn wall, the jangle of bells from a distant fair, the flash of wooden clubs turning dust into a brief, golden blur—a transient vessel for the collective imagination, stitching the isolated hamlet to the wider world through the ephemeral, necessary currency of wonder.
Etymology
Borrowed from French jongleur. Doublet of juggler.
noun
- An itinerant entertainer in medieval England and France; roles included song, music, acrobatics etc.; a troubadour.e.g.“vivacity and picturesqueness of the jongleur's verse” — 1874, John Richard Green, A Short History of the English People:
- A juggler; a conjurer.
- A mountebank.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- jonglery 78% match — The practice or performance of a jongleur ("an itinerant entertainer in medieval England and France"). vs jongleur →
- troubadour 76% match — An itinerant composer and performer of songs in medieval Europe; a jongleur or travelling minstrel. vs jongleur →
- juggler 71% match — A person who practices juggling (trick of throwing and catching balls or similar). vs jongleur →
- joculator 71% match — A jester; a joker. vs jongleur →
- minstrel 67% match — Originally, an entertainer employed to juggle, play music, sing, tell stories, etc.; a buffoon, a fool, a jester; later, a medieval (especially travelling) entertainer who would recite and sing poetry, often to their own musical accompaniment. vs jongleur →
- tregetour 65% match — A magician or juggler; a trickster. vs jongleur →
- jouster 63% match — A person who jousts. vs jongleur →
- saltimbanque 61% match — Tumbler, street acrobat. vs jongleur →