Villanus

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person characterized by rudeness or boorish behavior towards others
2. A term that denotes someone who engages in crude or coarse conduct, often lacking refinement
3. A designation for an individual who exhibits uncouth manners and a lack of sophistication

Etymology: In Roman times a "villa" was a country estate, and a "villanus" was the man who worked it, a farmhand or estate servant. Under medieval feudalism that status hardened into serfdom, so a "villanus" became a peasant bound to his lord's land. The Old French "vilain" carried the same sense of a low-born rustic labourer. The word's moral decline came later. English borrowed the term twice: as "villein," a legal name for a tenant bound to a manor, and as "villain," which by the late Middle Ages meant a base, boorish person. The modern sense of a wicked criminal grew out of that idea of social lowness, so a term once used for a peasant's rough manners came to describe a person's character. "Villein" survives mainly in medieval history, while "villain" kept the broader sense.