A group of performers — dancers, actors, singers, circus people — who work and usually travel together as one company. The key idea is togetherness over time: a troupe rehearses together, tours together, shares a name. Ten dancers hired for one night are not a troupe; the same ten who tour for three years are. You will meet it most often with dance, theatre and circus: 'a folk dance troupe', 'a touring theatre troupe', 'an acrobatic troupe'. It feels slightly old-fashioned and slightly romantic, carrying pictures of caravans and painted wagons; modern professional groups more often call themselves a company. There is also 'trouper', a person in such a group, which has taken on a life of its own — calling someone 'a real trouper' means they keep going cheerfully through difficulty, from the old idea that the show must go on. Note the tiny spelling trap built into the word: troupe and troop are the same word arriving in English twice, and English kept both spellings to split the jobs — troupe for performers, troop for soldiers.