peasantry
noun
peas·ant·ry ˈpe-zᵊn-trē 
1
: peasants
2
: the position, rank, or behavior of a peasant
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web Jan’s efforts are often helped by the local peasantry, whose rebelliousness has been stoked by years of excess taxation and other abuses. 
Dennis Harvey, Variety, 5 Sep. 2022 Stalin’s purges took millions of lives among the peasantry in the 1930s. David E. Hoffman, Washington Post, 30 Aug. 2022 Turgenev saw in them a crude but powerful materialism that counterposed the needs of the peasantry against the vague consolations of art. Keith Gessen, The New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2022 But those childhood sicknesses would have had the benefit of triggering some future immunity in the peasantry. Marylynn Salmon, The Conversation, 13 July 2022 We meta-originalists hope that politicians, legal scholars, and the peasantry take these words to heart. Dennard Dayle, The New Yorker, 22 July 2022 Despite huge increases in economic growth since the late 1950s, little had been done to improve the plight of the vast Mexican peasantry. Alexander F. Remington, Washington Post, 9 July 2022 Dovzhenko, one of the primary figures of the Soviet avant-garde alongside Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Dziga Vertov, tells a story about the collectivization of the Ukrainian peasantry. Joshua First, The Atlantic, 3 Mar. 2022 The philosophical difference between Maoism and Marxism–Leninism is that the peasantry are the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than the proletariat. Matt B. Weir, Harper’s Magazine , 18 Jan. 2022 See More
Dennis Harvey, Variety, 5 Sep. 2022 Stalin’s purges took millions of lives among the peasantry in the 1930s. David E. Hoffman, Washington Post, 30 Aug. 2022 Turgenev saw in them a crude but powerful materialism that counterposed the needs of the peasantry against the vague consolations of art. Keith Gessen, The New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2022 But those childhood sicknesses would have had the benefit of triggering some future immunity in the peasantry. Marylynn Salmon, The Conversation, 13 July 2022 We meta-originalists hope that politicians, legal scholars, and the peasantry take these words to heart. Dennard Dayle, The New Yorker, 22 July 2022 Despite huge increases in economic growth since the late 1950s, little had been done to improve the plight of the vast Mexican peasantry. Alexander F. Remington, Washington Post, 9 July 2022 Dovzhenko, one of the primary figures of the Soviet avant-garde alongside Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Dziga Vertov, tells a story about the collectivization of the Ukrainian peasantry. Joshua First, The Atlantic, 3 Mar. 2022 The philosophical difference between Maoism and Marxism–Leninism is that the peasantry are the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than the proletariat. Matt B. Weir, Harper’s Magazine , 18 Jan. 2022 See More Word History
First Known Use
circa 1553, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Phrases Containing peasantry
peasantry
noun
as in commoners
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
- commoners
- proletariat
- plebeians
- peonage
- proletarians
- bourgeoisie
- plebs
- rabble
- working class
- middle class
- rank and file
- (the) masses
- (the) public
- dregs
- (the) populace
- (the) crowd
- (the) people
- scum
- rabblement
- riffraff
- (the) herd
- (the) mob
- trash
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- aristocracy
- nobility
- gentry
- elite
- patriciate
- gentlefolk
- gentility
- quality
- upper class
- upper crust
- society
- gentlefolks
- glitterati
- café society
- jet set
- beautiful people
- plutocracy
- haute monde
- haut monde
- beau monde
- carriage trade
- A-list
- 400
- Four Hundred