pleb
/plɛb
/noun informal, derogatory
An ordinary person, especially one from the lower social classes.It was with a certain degree of self-confessed smugness that I looked out as the blustery wind swept around headquarters and the ordinary plebs tried to wrap up against the elements....
- Tressell wrote his book for the coffee tables of the dissenting middle classes rather than for plebs like Towers and me.
- The truly posh very rarely have much to do with this, so it tends to be the upper middle class vs the utter plebs.
Derivatives
plebby
- Eleven of the poor souls are to be discarded like crumpled tissue paper, the time-honoured public phone vote ensuring that one of their number is transported into the main house to meet their plebby new pals.
- I would have to study something plebby and lame.
- Where Mummy and Daddy used to live in very posh West of London, they had some rather plebby next door neighbours.
Origin
Mid 17th century: originally as plural plebs, from Latin plebs 'the common people'. Later a shortened form of plebeian.