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Webster 1913 Edition


Troubadour

Trou′ba-dourˊ

,
Noun.
[F.
troubadour
, fr. Pr.
trobador
, (assumed) LL.
tropator
a singer,
tropare
to sing, fr.
tropus
a kind of singing, a melody, song, L.
tropus
a trope, a song, Gr. [GREEK] a turn, way, manner, particular mode in music, a trope. See
Trope
, and cf.
Trouv[GREEK]re
.]
One of a school of poets who flourished from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, principally in Provence, in the south of France, and also in the north of Italy. They invented, and especially cultivated, a kind of lyrical poetry characterized by intricacy of meter and rhyme, and usually of a romantic, amatory strain.

Definition 2024


troubadour

troubadour

English

Noun

troubadour (plural troubadours)

  1. An itinerant composer and performer of songs in medieval Europe; a jongleur or travelling minstrel.
    • 2014 April 24, Alan Cowell, “At Pistorius trial, Twitterati have their day in court”, in The New York Times:
      Sitting in the courtroom ..., their laptops and tablets propped before them, power cables snaking through convoluted adapters, the Twitterati have sight of witnesses at all times – the troubadours, or perhaps the tricoteuses, of the digital revolution.

Translations


Danish

Noun

troubadour c (singular definite troubadouren, plural indefinite troubadourer)

  1. Alternative spelling of trubadur

Declension


French

Etymology

Old Provençal trobar (to find) via Old French troubadour

Noun

troubadour m (plural troubadours)

  1. troubadour

Coordinate terms

  • femme-troubadour
  • trobairitz
  • troubadouresse