MINSTREL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does minstrel mean? 

• MINSTREL (noun)
  The noun MINSTREL has 2 senses:

1. a singer of folk songs

2. a performer in a minstrel show

  Familiarity information: MINSTREL used as a noun is rare.

• MINSTREL (verb)
  The verb MINSTREL has 1 sense:

1. celebrate by singing, in the style of minstrels

  Familiarity information: MINSTREL used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MINSTREL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A singer of folk songs

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

folk singer; jongleur; minstrel; poet-singer; troubadour

Hypernyms ("minstrel" is a kind of...):

singer; vocaliser; vocalist; vocalizer (a person who sings)

Instance hyponyms:

Guthrie; Woodrow Wilson Guthrie; Woody Guthrie (United States folk singer and songwriter (1912-1967))

Pete Seeger; Peter Seeger; Seeger (United States folk singer who was largely responsible for the interest in folk music in the 1960s (born in 1919))

Derivation:

minstrel (celebrate by singing, in the style of minstrels)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A performer in a minstrel show

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("minstrel" is a kind of...):

performer; performing artist (an entertainer who performs a dramatic or musical work for an audience)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "minstrel"):

corner man; end man (a man at one end of line of performers in a minstrel show; carries on humorous dialogue with the interlocutor)

interlocutor; middleman (the performer in the middle of a minstrel line who engages the others in talk)

Holonyms ("minstrel" is a member of...):

minstrel show (a troupe of performers in blackface typically giving a comic program of negro songs and jokes)

Derivation:

minstrel (celebrate by singing, in the style of minstrels)

• MINSTREL (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Celebrate by singing, in the style of minstrels

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "minstrel" is one way to...):

sing (produce tones with the voice)

Domain category:

music (musical activity (singing or whistling etc.))

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

Sam and Sue minstrel

Derivation:

minstrel (a singer of folk songs)

minstrel (a performer in a minstrel show)

 Context examples 

“I trust that I am a better bowman than a minstrel,” said he.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I have heard the minstrels sing of one Sir Roland who was slain by the infidels in these very parts.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Let the sewers serve and the minstrels play, while we drain a cup to the brave days that are before us in the south!

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Oh that I were a minstrel, that I might put it into rhyme, with the whole romance—the luckless maid, the wicked socman, and the virtuous clerk!

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Heavy and slow is he by nature, and is not to be brought into battle for the sake of a lady's eyelash or the twang of a minstrel's string, like the hotter blood of the south. But ma foi! lay hand on his wool-bales, or trifle with his velvet of Bruges, and out buzzes every stout burgher, like bees from the tee-hole, ready to lay on as though it were his one business in life.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The breeze blew, the sail bellied, over heeled the portly vessel, and away she plunged through the smooth blue rollers, amid the clang of the minstrels on her poop and the shouting of the black crowd who fringed the yellow beach.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)