# peasant

Pronunciation: say "PEZ-uhnt" /ˈpɛzənt/

## Noun

1. A member of the low-ranking social class of small farmers, tenants, sharecroppers, and laborers who work the land and form the main agricultural workforce.
   - Simple: A poor farmer or farm worker, especially in earlier times or in poor countries.
   - _Most medieval peasants never traveled more than a day's walk from their village._
   - _A peasant who lost his tenancy had little choice but to hire out as a day laborer._
2. An uncouth, crude, or ill-bred person; someone seen as lacking manners or refinement.
   - Simple: A rude, crude person with very bad manners.
   - _Only a peasant would drink a fine Bordeaux straight from the bottle._
   - _He acted like an absolute peasant at the gallery opening, talking loudly through the speeches._
3. A person who lives in the countryside rather than in a town or city; a rural dweller.
   - Simple: Someone who lives in the countryside instead of a town or city.
   - _Every peasant in the valley knew the shortcut over the ridge._
   - _The novel contrasts the anxious city clerk with the easygoing peasants of his home village._
5. A worker unit in a strategy game, used to gather resources and construct buildings.
   - Simple: A worker character in a strategy game that collects things like wood and gold and builds buildings.
   - _Each peasant can carry ten units of gold back to the keep._
   - _She queued up five more peasants to speed up her castle's construction._

## Adjective

4. Characteristic of or relating to peasants or their way of life; simple, rustic, or unsophisticated.
   - Simple: Connected with poor farmers, or simple and plain in style.
   - _The restaurant serves hearty peasant cooking from southern France._
   - _Critics called his taste peasant, yet his plain furniture sold extremely well._

## Adjective

6. Low and vulgar in character or conduct; reprehensible, base, or dishonest. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Low, crude, or dishonest, showing no honor or respect.

## Origin

It comes from Late Middle English paissaunt, via Anglo-Norman paisant from Old French païsant ("countryman, peasant"), based on païs ("country"), from Latin pāgus ("countryside") plus a suffix meaning "member of"; ultimately an alteration of Late Latin pāgēnsis ("inhabitant of a district"). It is a doublet of paisano.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/peasant (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).