noun
mass nounusually the peasantry Smallholders and agricultural labourers of low social status (chiefly in historical use or with reference to subsistence farming in poorer countries)
‘the upper class exploited the peasantry’
- ‘What is your program for the improvement of the lot of the peasantry?’
- ‘The zombies' appearance, dressed in ragged brown robes, suggests a link with medieval peasantry.’
- ‘Family homes forsaken at gunpoint were promptly occupied by the peasantry, who deny all knowledge of past owners.’
- ‘Instead of standing up for the landless peasantry, the veterans spent most of the pre-election period frightening the life out of them.’
- ‘The small peasantry sells or exchanges over ten per cent of their labour expended in agriculture.’
- ‘Sociologically, the peasantry remained by far its largest class: 45 per cent of the population.’
- ‘For the peasantry in particular, the periods of English occupation must have been horrific.’
- ‘The whole leadership was devoted to this war on the peasantry.’
- ‘His abhorrence for these brands of nationalism can be extrapolated from his attitude toward the peasantry.’
- ‘Nearly all of the peasantry was stuck in a serfdom that offered few ways out.’