Bard
[bɑːrd]Meaning
A poet and singer who composed verse for a patron, from Proto-Celtic *bardos, praise-maker.
Background Story
The word goes back to the Proto-Celtic noun *bardos, meaning praise-maker, and is the source of Old Irish bard, Welsh bardd and related forms in the other Celtic languages. Greek and Roman authors writing about Gaul between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD counted bards, with the druids and the vates, among the learned orders of Gaulish society, and described them singing the praises of chieftains and the satire of their rivals to an instrument resembling the lyre. The word and the calling survived in medieval Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Brittany, and the term was later extended, inaccurately, to the poets and singers of the Germanic world. It now serves loosely for poets in general, most familiarly as "the Bard" for William Shakespeare.
Temperament
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