minstrels

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minstrels.
1. See menéstrel.

2. Black-faced entertainers, ‘nigger minstrels’, popular in USA (though not with genuine blacks) from about 1830s whose songs and humour were based on those of Negroes. Debussy's Minstrels in his Préludes (Book 1, No.12), refers to these mus.-hall troupes.