What does peasant mean?

Definitions for peasant
ˈpɛz əntpeas·ant

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word peasant.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. peasant, provincial, bucolicnoun

    a country person

  2. peasantnoun

    one of a (chiefly European) class of agricultural laborers

  3. peasant, barbarian, boor, churl, Goth, tyke, tikenoun

    a crude uncouth ill-bred person lacking culture or refinement

Wiktionary

  1. peasantnoun

    A member of the lowly social class which 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.

  2. peasantnoun

    A country person.

  3. peasantnoun

    An uncouth, crude or ill-bred person.

  4. peasantnoun

    (strategy games) a worker unit

  5. Etymology: From Late paissaunt, from paisant, from païsant, from païsan, from païs, from pagensis, from pagus + -enc, of origin, from -inc, -ing "-ing". More at -ing.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. PEASANTnoun

    A hind; one whose business is rural labour.

    Etymology: paisant, Fr.

    He holdeth himself a gentleman, and scorneth to work, which, he saith, is the life of a peasant or churl. Edmund Spenser.

    Our superfluous lacqueys and our peasants,
    Who in unnecessary action swarm
    About our squares of battle. William Shakespeare.

    I had rather coin my heart, than wring
    From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash. William Shakespeare.

    ’Tis difficult for us, who are bred up with the same infirmities about us with which we were born, to raise our thoughts and imaginations to those intellectual perfections that attended our nature in the time of innocence, as it is for a peasant bred up in the obscurities of a cottage, to fancy in his mind the unseen splendours of a court. Robert South, Sermons.

    The citizens would bring two thousand men, with which they could make head against twelve thousand peasants. Addison.

Wikipedia

  1. Peasant

    A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants existed: slave, serf, and free tenant. Peasants might hold title to land either in fee simple or by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.In some contexts, "peasant" has a pejorative meaning, even when referring to farm laborers. As early as in 13th-century Germany, the concept of "peasant" could imply "rustic" as well as "robber", as the English term villain/villein. In 21st-century English, the word "peasant" can mean "an ignorant, rude, or unsophisticated person". The word rose to renewed popularity in the 1940s–1960s as a collective term, often referring to rural populations of developing countries in general, as the "semantic successor to 'native', incorporating all its condescending and racial overtones".The word peasantry is commonly used in a non-pejorative sense as a collective noun for the rural population in the poor and developing countries of the world. Via Campesina, an organization claiming to represent the rights of about 200 million farm-workers around the world, self-defines as an "International Peasant's Movement" as of 2019. The United Nations and its Human Rights Council prominently uses the term "peasant" in a non-pejorative sense, as in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas adopted in 2018. In general English-language literature, the use of the word "peasant" has steadily declined since about 1970.

ChatGPT

  1. peasant

    A peasant is a person who lives in a rural area and works as an agricultural laborer or farmer, often with low socioeconomic status. Historically, this term often refers to the small landowners or farm workers of low social status in pre-industrial societies, typically living in feudal or similar systems and working under subsistence farming conditions. The term can sometimes carry negative connotations related to poverty or simplicity.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Peasantnoun

    a countryman; a rustic; especially, one of the lowest class of tillers of the soil in European countries

  2. Peasantadjective

    rustic, rural

Wikidata

  1. Peasant

    A peasant is a member of a traditional class of farmers, either laborers or owners of small farms, especially in the Middle Ages under feudalism, or more generally, in any pre-industrial society. In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their personal status: slave, serf, and freeman. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Peasant

    pez′ant, n. a countryman: a rustic: one whose occupation is rural labour.—adj. of or relating to peasants, rustic, rural: rude.—n. Peas′antry, the body of peasants or tillers of the soil: rustics: labourers.—Peasant proprietor, a peasant who owns and works his own farm; Peasants' War, a popular insurrection in Germany, in 1525, stamped out with horrible cruelty. [O. Fr. paisant (Fr. paysan)—pays—L. pagus, a district.]

Suggested Resources

  1. peasant

    Song lyrics by peasant -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by peasant on the Lyrics.com website.

Surnames Frequency by Census Records

  1. PEASANT

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Peasant is ranked #116829 in terms of the most common surnames in America.

    The Peasant surname appeared 149 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 would have the surname Peasant.

    98.6% or 147 total occurrences were Black.

British National Corpus

  1. Written Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'peasant' in Written Corpus Frequency: #2396

  2. Nouns Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'peasant' in Nouns Frequency: #1301

Usage in printed sourcesFrom: 

How to pronounce peasant?

How to say peasant in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of peasant in Chaldean Numerology is: 9

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of peasant in Pythagorean Numerology is: 4

Examples of peasant in a Sentence

  1. Konstanty Gebert:

    Before World War Two speaking in foreign languages was commonplace. You spoke in a different language with a Hungarian horse trader, a Jewish innkeeper or a Ukrainian peasant, that changed radically after the war.

  2. Mark Levin:

    The vast majority of people are not rising up trying to overthrow the country. It’s not the proletariat, rising up, overthrowing the Bourgeoisie. And it never is, whether it's Cuba or North Korea or China or Russia or any of those so-called revolutions, these are Marxist efforts by a smaller percentage of society to control a larger percentage of society, these are not peasant revolutions.

  3. Johann von Goethe:

    He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

  4. Gustavo Petro:

    It would be nice if he decided, once we are in power, to sell his Incauca farm to the government so we can give it to peasant farmers.

  5. Abbe Guillaume Raynal:

    The only difference between a genius and one of common capacity is that the former anticipates and explores what the latter accidentally hits upon; but even the man of genius himself more frequently employs the advantages that chance presents him; it is the lapidary who gives value to the diamond which the peasant has dug up without knowing its value.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

peasant#10000#21682#100000

Translations for peasant

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

  • فلاحArabic
  • селянка, селянінBelarusian
  • camperolCatalan, Valencian
  • sedlák, rolníkCzech
  • Bäuerin, Plebejerin, Bauerntum, Bauer, Bauernbub, Banause, Kleinbauer, Dorfbewohnerin, arm, Bauernlümmel, Plebejer, Bauernjunge, Dörflerin, Landmann, Dorfbewohner, Proletin, Landfrau, Bauersfrau, Dörfler, Bauernschaft, Bauernmädchen, Banausin, Prolet, KleinbäuerinGerman
  • αγρότης, χωρικός, αγροίκοςGreek
  • kamparanoEsperanto
  • campesinoSpanish
  • talonpoika, maalainen, torppari, pienviljelijä, moukkaFinnish
  • paysanne, villageoise, rustaud, paysan, rustique, villageois, rustaudeFrench
  • tuathánachIrish
  • tuathanachScottish Gaelic
  • gazdálkodó, paraszt, földművesHungarian
  • շինական, գյուղացիArmenian
  • paesano, cafona, contadino, cafone, paesana, contadinaItalian
  • 農夫, 小作人, 小百姓, 農民, 百姓Japanese
  • გლეხიGeorgian
  • 농민, 農夫, 농부, 農民Korean
  • селанец, селанка, копитоMacedonian
  • boer, landbouwer, plattelander, boerenpummmel, landarbeider, landmanDutch
  • chłop, chłopkaPolish
  • camponês, rústicoPortuguese
  • țăranRomanian
  • мужлан, мужик, крестьянин, крестьянка, селянин, деревенщинаRussian
  • seljak, сељак, кмет, kmet, сељанка, seljankaSerbo-Croatian
  • விவசாயTamil
  • селянин, селянкаUkrainian
  • 農民, nông dânVietnamese
  • feilan, länädanVolapük

Get even more translations for peasant »

Translation

Find a translation for the peasant definition in other languages:

Select another language:

  • - Select -
  • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
  • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Esperanto (Esperanto)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Português (Portuguese)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Русский (Russian)
  • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
  • 한국어 (Korean)
  • עברית (Hebrew)
  • Gaeilge (Irish)
  • Українська (Ukrainian)
  • اردو (Urdu)
  • Magyar (Hungarian)
  • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
  • Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • தமிழ் (Tamil)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • తెలుగు (Telugu)
  • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
  • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
  • Čeština (Czech)
  • Polski (Polish)
  • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Românește (Romanian)
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • Ελληνικά (Greek)
  • Latinum (Latin)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Dansk (Danish)
  • Suomi (Finnish)
  • فارسی (Persian)
  • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
  • հայերեն (Armenian)
  • Norsk (Norwegian)
  • English (English)

Word of the Day

Would you like us to send you a FREE new word definition delivered to your inbox daily?

Please enter your email address:


Citation

Use the citation below to add this definition to your bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"peasant." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 Dec. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/peasant>.

Discuss these peasant definitions with the community:

0 Comments

    Are we missing a good definition for peasant? Don't keep it to yourself...

    Image or illustration of

    peasant

    Credit »

    Free, no signup required:

    Add to Chrome

    Get instant definitions for any word that hits you anywhere on the web!

    Free, no signup required:

    Add to Firefox

    Get instant definitions for any word that hits you anywhere on the web!

    Quiz

    Are you a words master?

    »
    make more complex, intricate, or richer
    A condemn
    B refine
    C interrogate
    D signify

    Nearby & related entries:

    Alternative searches for peasant: