Sekirov Dictionary

minstrel

/ˈmɪnstɹ(ə)l/

noun 4
verb 2
forms 5

noun[before a noun]4

(literary) Any lyric poet, musician, or singer.
•
(historical) 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.
- I forgette to tel you what a stirre he keepes against dumbe ministers, and neuer writes nor talkes of them, but hee calleth them minstrels, […] — 1589
(US, historical) One of a troupe of entertainers, often a white person who wore black makeup (blackface), to present a so-called minstrel show, being a variety show of banjo music, dance, and song (now regarded as racist).
•
(slang) An amphetamine tablet, typically black, or black and white, in colour.
- Lacking food, Jimmy reverts to his “minstrels'” — speed — and in a paranoia of drugs and near-starvation the pair fall out. — 2008

verb[before a noun]2

•
To play (a tune on a musical instrument); to sing (a song).
- Blest be the impulse which did urge me forth, / Minstrelling winds with music, which did melt / Into kind ears like softly opening showers, / To those who asked if beggar wanted bread. — 1858
•
To act as a minstrel; to entertain by playing a musical instrument, singing, etc.
- Crown me, therefore,—and minstrelling near to thy fanes, Bacchus, thickly-adorned with rosy chaplets will I dance with a full-bosomed maid. — 1830

forms

minstreled · minstrelled · minstreling · minstrelling · minstrels

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