peasants

noun

plural of peasant
as in clowns
a person of low social status Those snobs treat anyone who lives on the "wrong" side of town like an insignificant peasant.

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of peasants Just as with the Romans, we peasants are treated to a spectacle to distract us from the reality of the abject impoverishment of the social safety net and the abandonment of the poor. — Chicago Tribune, 15 Aug. 2026 Long before the official ban on private farming was lifted in 1982, peasants across China spontaneously reintroduced private ownership in defiance of socialist doctrine. — Rainer Zitelmann, Space.com, 11 Aug. 2026 Their instincts as illiterate ex-peasants counseled them against doing so. — Literary Hub, 22 July 2026 Capitalizing on the tide of anti-Rhaenyra sentiment rising among the peasants of King's Landing, Ormund plots to sow further unrest by paying off a band of smallfolk to brutally torture and kill members of the City Watch. — Megan McCluskey, Time, 20 July 2026 The historian Eugen Weber wrote influentially of how peasants who spoke languages like Occitan, Breton, or Basque became—or, more honestly, were made—Frenchmen. — Nikhil Krishnan, New Yorker, 20 July 2026 Ong cited case studies by the neuropsychologist Alexander Luria, who traveled to remote villages in Uzbekistan and Kirghizia in the 1930s, when peasants were starting to receive rudimentary reading and writing instruction. — Rose Horowitch, The Atlantic, 8 July 2026 Andrei has taken up farming, and Miles eagerly joins him, hoping that the backbreaking work of scything will enhance his understanding of the Russian peasants he’s supposed to be writing about. — Heller McAlpin, Christian Science Monitor, 7 July 2026 Karelian bear dogs were originally used by Finnish and Russian peasants as watch dogs and for hunting, according to the American Kennel Club. — Natalie Krebs, Outdoor Life, 17 June 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for peasants
  1. clowns
  2. provincials
  3. mountaineers
Noun
  • Yusef Toubassi sits with his grandson Masa, looking on as children run by with cheeks painted bright colors and others howling with joy as clowns spin them around.
    — Dina Kraft, Christian Science Monitor, 19 Aug. 2026
  • One morning during my stay, there were even clowns buzzing about—a thrill to receive a balloon poodle alongside my morning flat white.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 29 July 2026
Definition of clowns
Noun
  • Marlowe, the son of a poor Canterbury cobbler, and Shakespeare, the son of a Stratford glover and alderman, were both unlikely artistic geniuses, provincials in a nation in which social class was rigidly fixed.
    — Heller McAlpin, Christian Science Monitor, 10 Sep. 2025
Definition of provincials
Noun
  • The bodies of two Belgian mountaineers who went missing in the Swiss Alps more than three decades ago have been found, officials said.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 20 Aug. 2026
  • The most recent example occurred July 26 when a hiker on the Trift Glacier discovered the remains of two mountaineers who had been missing since 1992 – according to Swiss police.
    — James Powel, USA Today, 20 Aug. 2026
Definition of mountaineers

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peasantry
peasants
pebbly
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Cite this Entry

“Peasants.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/peasants. Accessed 2 Sep. 2026.

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