Peasant
adj, noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A member of the lowly social class that toils on the land, constituted by small farmers and tenants, sharecroppers, farmhands and other laborers on the land where they form the main labor force in agriculture and horticulture.
"The Ambassador warned him of the consequences if his mission to Moscow were a failure, both to Churchill's position at home and to Russia's prospects in the war. He insisted that he should not allow himself to be offended 'by a peasant who didn't know any better'. Churchill listened in silence, then returned to the dacha leaving Clark Kerr outside."
- 2 a country person wordnet
- 3 A country person.
- 4 a crude uncouth ill-bred person lacking culture or refinement wordnet
- 5 An uncouth, crude or ill-bred person. derogatory
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- 6 one of a (chiefly European) class of agricultural laborers wordnet
- 7 A worker unit.
- 1 Characteristic of or relating to a peasant or peasants; unsophisticated. attributive, not-comparable
"peasant class"
- 2 Lowly, vulgar; reprehensible; dishonest. derogatory, not-comparable, obsolete
"Oh what a Rogue and Pesant slave am I?"
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"I am nothing but a poor peasant."
Etymology
From Late Middle English paissaunt, from Anglo-Norman paisant, from Old French païsant, païsan (“countryman, peasant”), from païs (“country”), from Latin pāgus (“countryside”) + Old French -enc (“member of”), from Frankish -inc, -ing "-ing"; which was an alteration of earlier Late Latin pāgēnsis (“inhabitant of a district”). Doublet of paisano.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.