low-bornadj.n.

c1275 (?a1200) Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1978) l. 10999 Ne beo he noht swa loh iboren ful wel he beoð iborȝen.

?1504 S. Hawes Example of Vertu sig. cc.v For I by ryght must nedys enhauncce A lowe born man to an hyghe degre.

1579 J. Stubbs Discouerie Gaping Gulf sig. A5 The common wealthes of England & Fraunce..would meruail if eyther our Queene or Monsieur..should seeke or consent in mariage with any low borne or contemptible person.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Winter's Tale (1623) iv. iv. 156 This is the prettiest Low-borne Lasse, that euer Ran on the greene-sord. View more context for this quotation

1733 A. Pope Of Use of Riches 8 Corruption..Shall deluge all; and Av'rice creeping on, Spread like a low-born Mist, and blot the Sun.

1743 A. Pope Dunciad (rev. ed.) ii. 356 A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band..who fight for any God, or Man.

1749 D. Hartley Observ. Man i. iv. 446 A Complacence in being low-born, on account of his present high Station.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. x. 657 The fact that the low born young barrister was appointed to so honorable and important a post.

1899 Spectator 28 Jan. 117/2 The mingling of the two strains in her from the well-born father and the low-born mother..are worked into a careful study.

1986 S. Penman Here be Dragons (1991) (U.K. ed.) i. i. 20 What sort of lowborn riffraff have you taken up with now, Stephen?

2003 Vanity Fair Dec. 284/2 [Antonin] transcended his origins as a lowborn pastry cook to become the greatest authority on French cuisine of the 19th century.

1725 E. Young Universal Passion: Satire IV 12 Only the low-born, deform'd, and old, Think glory nothing but the beams of gold.

1793 W. Godwin Enq. Polit. Justice II. viii. viii. 890 Commerce proved that others could rise to wealth;..learning proved that the low-born were capable of surpassing their lords.

1825 Pocket Mag. 3 47 The intercourse of the military with the softer sex, is a good deal limited to the lowborn and the unchaste.

1889 C. O. Ward Anc. Lowly iv. 118 They were of the lowborn, with little education and no urbanity.

1975 F. Wakeman Fall of Imperial China iii. 51 Given..the absence of an aristocratic order impenetrable to the lowborn, chief merchants like the Cheng family were able to acquire official gentry status.

2010 Flickgrrl (Nexis) 16 Sept. Hotels are..places where the lowborn are treated like kings.

1842 F. Trollope Barnabys in Amer. xx, in New Monthly Mag. Aug. 549 Half-a-dozen vulgar low-borns, who never knew the elegant luxury of owning a score of slaves to wait upon 'em.

1879 E. Arnold Light of Asia vii. 202 Wrapped in a clout, shorn, sandalled, craving food Of low-borns.

1909 Motorcycle Illustr. 15 Dec. 14/2 The clerical, bookkeeping, whitehanded, officy class are taking up motorcycling, which makes us merry; for this sport needs them all, high-borns, low-borns, the pale of face [etc.].

2006 P. Rusesabagina & T. Zoellner Ordinary Man ii. 23 To Speke's way of thinking, these poor lowborns had obviously found their way to exile in Central Africa and had reproduced themselves by the millions.