Peasantry

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈpɛzəntɹi/

Definitions

1. A socioeconomic group made up of rural workers who primarily cultivate land, usually under a system that restricts their wealth and mobility
2. The collective of individuals involved in agriculture, typically marked by low income and limited access to resources, often bound to the land they farm
3. A social class consisting of rural laborers engaged in farming, often characterized by limited economic power and dependence on land usage for survival

Etymology: "Peasant" came into English from Old French "paisant," meaning a person of the countryside, and it began life as a word for a country dweller rather than a social class with a set of legal restrictions. Its ultimate ancestry lies in Latin "pagus," a rural district, the same root that gives English "pagan," since country folk were often the last to adopt Christianity in the Roman world. The meaning gradually narrowed to the poor laborers of the land. "Peasantry" is simply "peasant" with the suffix "-ry," which in English forms collective nouns denoting a group or condition, as in "gentry" or "yeomanry." Once the group sense was attached, the word named the whole body of rural labourers rather than one individual. The suffix explains the shape of the word, but the collective sense is what gives it its weight in histories of medieval and early modern Europe.

Synonyms: farmers, agrarians

Antonyms: aristocracy, nobility