minstrel vs singer

minstrel

noun
  • Any lyric poet, musician, or singer. 

  • One of a troupe of entertainers, often a white person who wore black makeup (blackface), to present a so-called minstrel show, being a variety show of banjo music, dance, and song (now sometimes regarded as racist). 

  • Originally, an entertainer employed to juggle, play music, sing, tell stories, etc.; a buffoon, a fool, a jester; later, a medieval (especially travelling) entertainer who would recite and sing poetry, often to their own musical accompaniment. 

  • An amphetamine tablet, typically black, or black and white, in colour. 

verb
  • To play (a tune on a musical instrument); to sing (a song). 

  • To act as a minstrel; to entertain by playing a musical instrument, singing, etc. 

singer

noun
  • A person who sings, often professionally. 

  • A machine for singeing cloth. 

  • A person who, or device which, singes. 

  • dance figure with a fixed structure, sung by a caller, or a piece of music with that structure. 

How often have the words minstrel and singer occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )