Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One of a class of 12th-century and 13th-century lyric poets in southern France, northern Italy, and northern Spain, who composed songs in langue d'oc often about courtly love.
  • noun A strolling minstrel.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of a class of early poets who first appeared in Provence, France.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun 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.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An itinerant composer and performer of songs in medieval Europe; a jongleur or travelling minstrel.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a singer of folk songs

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Provençal trobador, from Old Provençal, from trobar, to compose, probably from Vulgar Latin *tropāre, from Late Latin tropus, trope, song, from Latin, trope; see trope.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old Provençal trobar ("to find") via Old French troubadour

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