roturier
Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A commoner, a plebeian, a person of low rank
- n. A person who is not of noble birth; specif., a freeman who during the prevalence of feudalism held allodial land.
- n. In France, a person not of noble birth; a plebeian.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Examples
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People shrugged their shoulders, and hinted that there was something of the "roturier" in Mr. Dunbar; but they freely acknowledged that he was a fine handsome-looking fellow, and that his daughter was an angel, rendered still more angelic by the earthly advantage of half a million or so for her marriage-portion.
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I think at your age, with your appearance, that your name is worth at least two million francs in the eyes of a rich 'roturier' with an ambitious daughter.
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This fact shows our British independence and honest feeling — our higher orders are not such mere haughty aristocrats as the ignorant represent them: on the contrary, if a man have money they will hold out their hands to him, eat his dinners, dance at his balls, marry his daughters, or give their own lovely girls to his sons, as affably as your commonest roturier would do.
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The whiskers of a roturier, my good Lankin, grow as long as the beard of a Plantagenet.
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These families, without ever losing sight of their nonnoble roturier background, were in the process of acquiring the attributes and manner of life of the nobility.
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The provinces were full of roturier families, who for ages had lived as people of property upon their own domains, and paid the taxes.
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For, if he described another Englishman as not being a nobleman, invariably the foreigner would presume it to be meant that he was not a gentleman -- not of the privileged class -- in fact, that he was a plebeian or _roturier_, though very possibly a man every way meritorious by talents or public services.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843
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On the contrary, the duke expected all his pokers and fire-shovels to be made silver, and all his pewter utensils gold; and thought the honour of his acquaintance was reward sufficient for a _roturier_, who could not want wealth since he possessed so invaluable a secret.
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Note
The word 'roturier' comes from a French word meaning 'newly cultivated land'.
