Thursday word: tregetour

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

tregetour (TRE-geh-toor) - n., a street juggler, trickster, or magician.


Formerly, a conjurer or juggler in any context, but sadly those professions have slid down the social scale from the manor house to sidewalk busking. This word's a n old one (it's used by Chaucer), borrowed from Old French tregetor, from tregeter, throw around, ultimately from Latin trans- + jactare, to throw -- so originally more the juggler than magician side of things.


Thanks, Wikimedia!

The sewer thought I was dressed to bear a part in the tregetour’s mummery, and so I got admission.

—Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

(Sewer: a server, archaic word for waiter.)

---L.