pleben.

Etymology: < (i) Middle French plebe, French plèbe (mass noun) the ordinary people of ancient Rome (c1355; rare), the common people, the lower classes, the mob (1792), or its etymon (ii) classical Latin plēb-, plēbs (see plebs n.). Compare Spanish plebe (c1400), Portuguese plebe (15th cent.), Italian plebe (1313). Compare slightly later plebs n.Sense 1a suggests that Latin plēbs , usually a mass noun, may have been analysed as a plural. This reanalysis may have been encouraged by the occasional occurrence in post-classical Latin of a plural plebes in the sense ‘peoples’, and perhaps also by the existence of a classical Latin variant form plēbēs , singular mass noun (see plebs n.). In sense 2 perhaps independently shortened from plebeian n. Compare slightly later pleb n. 2. The following apparently represents an error, probably scribal, for Latin tribuni plebis (the edition followed ( C. Babington Rolls Series 41 (1869) II. 273) reads plebis, but gives plebes as the reading of the manuscript; it is uncertain whether plebis represents an emendation or the reading of another manuscript, as London, British Library, MS Additional 24194, the main source of variant readings in this edition, reads at this point trybunes pleb): ▸ a1387 J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1869) II. 273 After consuls tribunes plebes and doctores rulede the comounte anon to Iulius Cesar his tyme [L. deinde tribuni plebis et dictatores rem publicam tractabant usque ad Julium Cæsarem].