peasant Hear it!

peasant Definition

peas·ant (pezənt)

noun

  1. any person of the class of small farmers or of farm laborers, as in Europe or Asia
  2. a person regarded as coarse, boorish, ignorant, etc.

Etymology: LME paissaunt < Anglo-Fr paisant < MFr païsent < OFr < païs, country < LL pagensis, belonging to the district < pagus, district: see pagan

peasant Synonyms

peasant

n.

small farmer, rustic, provincial, tenant farmer, farm-laborer, farm worker, kulak, sharecropper; see also farmer, laborer, rancher, worker.

peasant Usage Examples

Possessives

  • revolt: The answer to both questions is in the crisis in feudal society which was the cause of the peasants ' revolt.
  • hut: I slept in peasants ' huts, sometimes nine of us in one room.
  • cottage: The cottages at Thrislington were larger than the average medieval peasant's cottage.

Converse of object

  • starve: In the State farm he was also given excellent meals, in contrast to the starving peasants.
  • oppress: The Soviet Press knows how to describe in lurid terms the fate of the oppressed peasants in Poland.
  • urge: It was they that urged the peasants to massacre their cattle.

Adjective modifier

  • landless: Thousands of hungry landless African peasants in their own country demanding a piece of their own land are effortlessly dismissed.
  • illiterate: The educated clergy were not always less cruel than the illiterate peasants.
  • Ukrainian: It appears that for officials the national identity of Ukrainian peasants was an unusually sensitive matter.
  • ignorant: It was a stunning victory by supposedly ' ignorant European peasants ' .
  • Russian: The Russian peasant, that is, the overwhelming mass of the population, still lives in deep poverty.
  • poor: The practical work of the poor peasants ' committees, however, embraced all aspects of village life.

Modifies a noun

  • revolt: Nevertheless, disputes over land or economic exploitation were not frequent causes of peasant revolts in the South in colonial times in Mexico.
  • uprising: He was opposed by left-wing groups, and in 1967 there was a peasant guerrilla uprising led by Ernesto ' Che ' Guevara.
  • commune: Pallot J ' Did the Stolypin Land Reform destroy the peasant commune?
  • farmer: Only an animal or a peasant farmer can live without money.
  • proprietor: The medieval burgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the precursors of the modern bourgeoisie.
  • rebellion: In the spring of 1636, a peasant rebellion took place in Angoulême.

Noun used with modifier

  • subsistence: Subsistence peasant agriculture was not the subject of any systematic statistical surveys then, he said.
peasant Quotes

That all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of the Southern Cross, a child of the mighty bush. I am thankful I am a peasant, a part of the bone and muscle of my nation, and earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, as man was meant to do. I rejoice I was not born a parasite, one of the blood-suckers who loll on velvet and satin, crushed from the proceeds of human sweat and blood and souls.

—of Bin Bin

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