Meanings
- historicaluncountableThe practice or performance of a jongleur ("an itinerant entertainer in medieval England and France").
"Why, Little Father! You are urging these good Christians to practise jonglery — like Nomgantz!" The priest laughed, too.
1959, Charles Francis Bowen, Lost Virgin: A Novel, B. Humphries, page 2313 more examples
The shows at Tourney, or Saints' Day, were made to charm the eye and ear; and the minstrel found it necessary to unit mimicry and jonglery with his rhymes, to command attention.
1841, “Chapters on English Poetry”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 8, page 309'It will not be for the worst then,' quoth I. 'So now go wake up thy lion, and lead him away to his den: and we will presently send him this carrion for a reward of his jonglery.'
1896, William Morris, The Well at the World's End, The Kelmscott PressNorman replies, "Lord father, by godfather and godmother, who answered for me in baptism to the clergyman, named me Perron; afterward people called me by the surname Norman, and I was born in Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise, and as a poor minstrel I support myself from jonglery."
2022, Jan M. Ziolkowski, Reading the Juggler of Notre Dame, Open Book Publishers, →ISBN
Origin
From jongleur + -ery. Compare French jonglerie (“juggling”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
jonglery. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jonglery
“jonglery.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jonglery. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “jonglery,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jonglery.
Source: jonglery on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.