The condition of being a peasant; the position, rank, conduct, or quality of a peasant.
Used in a Sentence
peasantry
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for peasantry.
Editorial note
There have been farmers in North America before and after Columbus/the American Revolution but there was never a peasantry.
Examples17
Definitions3
Parts of speech1
Quick take
The condition of being a peasant; the position, rank, conduct, or quality of a peasant.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of peasantry gathered in one view.
Ignorant people of the lowest social status; bumpkins, rustics.
(historical) Impoverished rural farm workers, either as serfs, small freeholders or hired hands.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for peasantry.
noun
The condition of being a peasant; the position, rank, conduct, or quality of a peasant.
noun
Ignorant people of the lowest social status; bumpkins, rustics.
noun
(historical) Impoverished rural farm workers, either as serfs, small freeholders or hired hands.
Example sentences
There have been farmers in North America before and after Columbus/the American Revolution but there was never a peasantry.
Armed peasantry have been beating western armies since WW2, and are pulling away in terms of effectiveness.
The peasantry were always under some feudal rule and a lack of resources had been the norm.
The historical social relevance was most of the German peasantry couldn't read or listen to Aramaic at that time.
The irish peasantry got along famously well on almost exclusively milk and potatoes for a very long time, for example.
If you have an SSD this shouldn't be a problem, just be patient for that 2-3 seconds of painstaking peasantry.
The bad guys are the ones who see us as overpaid cost centers and peasantry.
Feudalism was no different from any other pre-industrial social structure, a parasitic rentier class taxed the peasantry to support their lifestyles.
Living conditions for the peasantry in the Middle Ages could have been worse.
Surprise surprise, the King wants to squeeze thew peasantry again with another tax.
Most folks, including the peasantry, including most of America, distrusted the Republic concept and were convinced a Royal was owed his inheirited power.
Despite the very long period of leisure that medieval peasants had during wintertime, not a whole lot of scientific or technological progress came out of the peasantry.
Quote examples
In the Feudal period, it was the divinity of the monarch and the "natural" state of the peasantry being tied to the land, surrendering a tithe to the king and the clergy.
The imagined "sober Protestant bourgeois ethic" of capitalism stopped having any basis in reality hundreds of years ago, around the time usury and Enclosure Laws, and Poor Laws were used to evict the peasantry from their land to forcibly create a landless proletariat.
Some people suggest that one of the reasons Napoleon was able to do so well militarily in the earlier years was this "Levée en masse" - most other countries at the time being a little hesitant to arm and train the peasantry, for fear they might demand rights.
"By establishing strong "fair" law they stopped long lasted inner-conflicts and "made life better"." They established fair law for 80 years at most, and at the price of killing off a substantial percentage of the peasantry (who the Mongols, as pastoralists, viewed individually as less valuable than a horse) of conquered regions.
Proper noun examples
Peasantry wasn't slavery, but they were serfs, and in the end serfdom didn't end up being very different to slavery.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use peasantry in a sentence?
There have been farmers in North America before and after Columbus/the American Revolution but there was never a peasantry.
What does peasantry mean?
The condition of being a peasant; the position, rank, conduct, or quality of a peasant.
What part of speech is peasantry?
peasantry is commonly used as noun.