peasant
n. countablen. a poor person who works on a small farm, especially in the past. In modern times, people sometimes use it as a rude insult for someone they think is uneducated or has low social status.
n. a member of a traditional class of farmers or agricultural labourers with low social status. In contemporary informal usage, often functions as a derogatory term for a person perceived as lacking culture, wealth, or sophistication.
The wealthy man looked at the crowd and called them peasants.
In the middle ages, most of the population consisted of peasants who worked land owned by the nobility.
While the historical study focuses on the uprising of the rural peasants, modern internet culture has repurposed the term as a sharp, classist insult directed at those with inferior technology.
From Late Middle English paissaunt, from Anglo-Norman paisant, from Old French païsant, païsan (“countryman, peasant”), from païs (“country”), from Latin pāgus (“countryside”) + Old French -enc (“member of”), from Frankish -inc, -ing "-ing"; which was an alteration of earlier Late Latin pāgēnsis (“inhabitant of a district”). Doublet of paisano.
Commonly used historically to describe a social class; modern usage is almost exclusively pejorative or humorous.