saltimbanque

plural saltimbanques · alternative saltimbank

1. Tumbler, street acrobat.

   Outside, saltimbanques of snow were leaping up and flipping backward.

   1988, Edmund White, chapter 1, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994

   2 more examples

   Circus is a simple, romantic ballet, set to some suitable music by France’s Jacques Ibert, laid in a village square of placardized baroque, and dressed in costumes that suggest the saltimbanques of Picasso.

   1956 June 11, “The New Pictures”, in Time

   1960, Henry Miller, Nexus, Obelisk Press, Chapter 13, Another day my hands might wander over the keys with the felicity of a Borgia’s murderous paw. Choosing the staccato technique, I would ape the quibblers and quipsters of the Ghibellines. Or put it on, like a saltimbanque performing for a feeble-minded monarch.