PEASANTRY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does peasantry mean? 

• PEASANTRY (noun)
  The noun PEASANTRY has 1 sense:

1. the class of peasants

  Familiarity information: PEASANTRY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PEASANTRY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The class of peasants

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("peasantry" is a kind of...):

class; social class; socio-economic class; stratum (people having the same social, economic, or educational status)

Meronyms (members of "peasantry"):

peasant (one of a (chiefly European) class of agricultural laborers)

 Context examples 

I fear that the boat is not any better for the accident; the peasantry tell us that after she got upon smooth water again, she kept stopping every now and again so long as she was in sight.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and Bauerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British peasantry.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)