The basic problem arising from social scientists’ use of the term peasants is this: should it be used, as in everyday parlance, to refer to a social type, or should it rather be used as an adjective to describe certain features of varying rural...

Used as a term of abuse to a person, usually a man, to imply that he is without education or manners. The term is certainly not obsolete, as the Oxford English Dictionary states, though it is less used now than in earlier times. The Shakespearean plays...

A peasant will stand on the top of a hill for a very long time with his mouth open before a roast duck will fly in. (Spanish) An ennobled peasant does not know his own father. (Dutch) Every peasant is proud of the pond in his village because from it he...

A peasant, derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, the countryside or region, which itself derives from the Latin pagus, country district, is an agricultural worker with roots in the countryside in which he or she dwells,...