goliard

G2O1L1I1A1R1D2

noun

A wandering student of the 12th or 13th century, whose convivial lifestyle included minstrelsy and a typical satirical Latin poetry.

RareScrabble 9

Meanings

goliard1

noungoliard (plural goliards)

plural goliards

  1. alternativeAlternative form of Goliard.

Goliard2

nounGoliard (plural Goliards)

plural Goliards · alternative goliard

  1. historicalA wandering student of the 12th or 13th century, whose convivial lifestyle included minstrelsy and a typical satirical Latin poetry.

    There it was more commonly trochaic than iambic, as in the famous drinking song of the Goliards: […]

    1903, Raymond MacDonald Alden, English Verse […] , New York: Henry Holt & Co
    4 more examples

    It is a note scornful, defiant, often ribald and profane, that comes into the songs of the goliards and troubadours.

    1920, A. S. Turberville, Mediæval Heresy & the Inquisition, London: Crosby Lockwood and Son

    The Goliard, indeed, can be regarded as a sub-species of the jongleur, and evidence exists that the personnel of the two classes was to some extent interchangeable.[…]The anonymous Goliard known as the Archpoet⁽¹¹⁸⁾ was of higher social standing than most of his confreres and, as a poet, one of the greatest of his class.

    1951, Frederick Brittain, The Mediaeval Latin and Romance Lyric to A.D. 1300, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, published 2009, page 16

    A few lucky Goliards gained a more secure life by being adopted by some rich patron, just as the Archpoet, the most famous Goliard, had himself been taken up by the Archbishop of Cologne. Most Goliards roved from town to town, begging food and lodging, earning some coins by pleasing their audience with their songs.

    1996, Jeffrey M. Duban, transl., edited by Judith Lynn Sebesta, Carl Orff: Carmina Burana: Cantiones Profange, page 5

    Well-known texts such as those of the Roman Catholic Mass and certain Latin hymns were all warped to encompass the secular and satirical purposes of the Goliards. In the hands of the Goliards strict Latin verse fell into a more natural stress-based prosody that better expressed the bawdy themes of drinking, fighting, and love that populated their writing in equal measure.

    2008, Thomas Ingoldsby, edited by G. A. R. Hamilton, Introductory: The Ingoldsby Legends and Emopire: The Ingoldsby Legends, page xiii

Origin

  1. Old Frenchgoliard“glutton”
  2. EnglishGoliard

Uncertain, possibly from Old French goliard (“glutton”); compare Italian goliardo (“university student”).

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

French goliard
  • goliardwandering student
German Vagant
  • Vagantwandering student
Polish goliard, wagant
  • goliardwandering student
  • wagantwandering student

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

goliard. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/goliard

MLA

“goliard.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/goliard. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “goliard,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/goliard.

Source: goliard on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.