jester

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English gestour (“reciter of romances”), also jestour and gester,^[2][3][4] formed from Middle English gesten + -our.^[4][2][3] The verb, meaning to recite a tale, comes from geste (“a tale of exploits”),^[3][2] which is from Old French geste (“action, exploit”) and ultimately Latin gesta (“deeds”), a form of the past participle of gerō (“to carry, behave, act, perform”).^[2][5] The OED and the Shorter Oxford analyse the modern word as jest and -er, a variant spelling of gester.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who recites romances or tells stories: Etymonline dates the word to the mid-14th century,^[2] the MED has Jestour for a paid entertainer in an account of about 1362,^[3] and the OED's first quotation is from about 1380.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The first jesters were storytellers: Trevisa pairs poetes and gestoures before 1387,^[3] and the Chaucer concordance glosses his two uses as reciters of romances.^[7] The word followed the fortunes of jest, which went from a tale of deeds to an idle tale (1488), a taunt (1548) and a joke (1551).^[5] Around 1510–1518 jester came to mean a person who makes jokes, and a professional clown kept in a royal or noble household;^[5][2] T. More has the first and A. Barclay the second.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave "one given to merriment and pranks", "one given to sarcasm" and "buffoon".^[8] The old sense lived on only as an archaism, as in Scott's "jester's tale".^[4][5] West Indian speech has a verb jester, to play the fool, quoted from Bob Marley in 1974, and later to mock or tease aggressively.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1362 – Jestour, of a paid entertainer in a Latin account.^[3]
• c. 1380 – a professional storyteller or reciter of romances.^[5]
• c. 1510 – a person given to making jokes.^[5]
• c. 1518 – a professional joker or clown, especially at a royal court.^[5][2]
• 1974 – verb, in West Indian speech, to play the fool.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A professional clown kept by a king or noble, especially in the Middle Ages; a fool.^[10][4][5]
2. A person who likes to make jokes or play the clown.^[4][5]
3. (archaic) A professional reciter of romances.^[4][5][6]

Related words

• jest
• gest

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins