minstrel
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmɪnstɹ(ə)l/
Forms: form: minstrels
form: minstreling
form: minstrelling
form: minstreled
form: minstreled
form: minstrelled
form: minstrelled
Etymology: The noun is derived from Middle English minstral, menestrel (“actor; juggler; mime; musician; singer; storyteller; (military) soldier playing a horn or trumpet as a signal”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman menestrel [and other forms] and Old French menestrel (“artisan; servant; itinerant musician or poet; worker”) [and other forms] (modern French ménestrel (“minstrel”)), from Late Latin ministerialis (“official or retainer owing household and military service to a feudal lord, a ministerial or ministerialis”), from Latin ministerium (“employment, ministration; office of a minister, ministry; action or attendance by an inferior person such as a slave, service”) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives). Ministerium is derived from minister (“accomplice; agent; aide; attendant; servant; waiter”) (probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“little, small”) + *-teros (contrastive or oppositional suffix forming adjectives)) + -ium (suffix forming abstract nouns). Doublet of ministerial and ministerialis.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1858, J[ohn] F[razer] Corkan, An Hour Ago: Or Time in Dreamland. A Mystery, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, →OCLC, page 93:
text: And instantly from the depts of the black recesses behind the reredos of the altar there slid like slanting light-rays through the air a little creature, a tenuous grey bird, an embodied breeze, a flash of life. It settled, still minstreling its luted sibboleth, to a fluttering rest in the panting bosom of Areta.
ref: 1896, M[atthew] P[hipps] Shiel, “Part II—Shape III: Phorfor”, in Shapes in the Fire: Being a Mid-winter-night’s Entertainment in Two Parts and an Interlude (The Keynotes Series; 29), London: John Lane, […]; Boston, Mass.: Roberts Bros., →OCLC, page 276:
text: [The sense that African Canadians began to appear about the time that Pierre Elliott Trudeau became prime minister of Canada in 1968] has lead [sic] to the perception that black [Canadian] writing, minstreling the pioneer mythologies of survival, simply records the struggle of (West Indian) immigrants against a cold, white, bitterly racist Canada.
ref: 1997 spring–summer, Peter Hudson, “Editor’s Note: In the Country of the Snow Blind”, in West Coast Line: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Criticism, volume 31, number 1, Burnaby, B.C.: Department of English, Simon Fraser University, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5; quoted in George Elliott Clarke, “Embarkation: Discovering Africa-Canadian Literature”, in Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature, Toronto, Ont.; Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 2002, →ISBN, note 5, page 19:
glosses: To play (a tune on a musical instrument); to sing (a song).
examples: text: Crown me, therefore,—and minstrelling near to thy fanes, Bacchus, thickly-adorned with rosy chaplets will I dance with a full-bosomed maid.
ref: 1830, Anacreon, “Ode V. On the Rose.”, in T. W. C. Edwards, transl., Τα του Ανακρεοντος του Τηιου Μελη = The Odes of Anacreon the Teian Bard, Literally Translated into English Prose; […], London: […] [J. M‘Gowan and Son] for W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, […], →OCLC, page 22:
text: [T]here are hotels in Kertch, the keepers of which bring over a band of musicians, singing men and singing women, especially the latter, every year for the amusement of [ship] masters, who, […] lavishly distribute bottles of champagne, and other delicacies, to these minstreling angels—women, and pay away their roubles as if they were coppers.
ref: 1872 March 26, Peter Barrow, “Correspondence. Lightening Ships over Yenicalee Bar.”, in The Nautical Magazine. A Journal of Papers on Subjects Connected with Maritime Affairs, volume XLI (New Series), London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co. […]; and J. D. Potter, […], published June 1872, →OCLC, page 492:
text: [T]he three of us will set forth from this fortress of mighty stone and like troubadours of old we will go a-minstreling from village to village!
ref: 1921, Al Jennings, “Methods of O. Henry; His Promotion; the Singing of Sally Castleton; O. Henry’s Indifference; the Explanation”, in Through the Shadows with O. Henry, New York, N.Y.: The H. K. Fly Company, →OCLC, page 185:
text: Cutwolf was not just acting the troubadour, the jongleur, the travelling minstrel, he was also Beauchamp's spy. […] Once he'd finished minstrelling, he would invite others to make their contribution about life along the alleyways of Dowgate and the surrounding wards. Everyone was eager to participate and, in anticipation during the day, garner as much tittle-tattle and gossip as possible.
ref: 2012, Paul Doherty, “The Physician’s Tale”, in The Midnight Man: The Physician’s Tale of Mystery and Murder as He Goes on a Pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, Sutton, Surrey: Crème de la Crime, Severn House Publishers, →ISBN, part 5, page 138:
text: But to come to a sick world like Burma, as a meteoric Kulturträger [culture carrier], minstrelling about the advantages of freedom over slavery, is an imposture, a Schweinerei, [disgrace] with Germanic overtones.
ref: 2015, Vincent Giroud, “The Rasputin Years”, in Nicolas Nabokov: A Life in Freedom and Music, Oxford, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN:
glosses: To act as a minstrel; to entertain by playing a musical instrument, singing, etc.
Derived terms: word: minstreling
word: minstrelling