a trouvère, medieval lyric poet using the Northern langue d'oïl (precursor lects of modern French), as opposed to their older, southern example, the original troubadours, who used langue d'oc (Occitan)
“Ainsi, la poésie lyrique des troubadours et des trouvères, et surtout la portion de cette poésie qui roule sur les sentimens de galanterie chevaleresque, n'a pas une source latine; cette poésie est née avec la galanterie chevaleresque elle-même, […].” — Thus, the lyric poetry of the troubadours and trouvères, and especially that part of this poetry which revolves around the sentiments of chivalric gallantry, does not have a Latin source; this poetry was born with chivalric gallantry itself, […] .
Inherited from Middle French trouvere, from Old French trovere (nominative singular case of troveor, from trover (“to find”) + -eor (agent noun suffix)), or possibly corresponding to a Gallo-Vulgar Latin *tropātor, from the verb *tropō, tropāre, from Latin tropus. Cognate with Old Occitan, Occitan, and Catalan trobador (the form trouvère is directly cognate with the Occitan form trobaire, itself from the nominative singular case of the corresponding Old Occitan form), from the verb trobar (“to f