peasantry

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   peasants considered collectively as a rural social class

   The reform transferred much of the land from the nobility to the peasantry.

Formed from peasant + the collective suffix -ry. Peasant came through Middle English and Anglo-French from Old French paisant, literally a person of the country, based on pais ("country, region"), ultimately from Latin pagus ("rural district").

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