Plebeian \Ple*be"ian\ (pl[-e]*b[=e]"yan), a. [L. plebeius, from
plebs, plebis, the common people: cf. F. pl['e]b['e]ien.]
1. Of or pertaining to the Roman plebs, or common people.
[1913 Webster]
2. Of or pertaining to the common people; vulgar; common; as,
plebeian sports; a plebeian throng.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Plebeian \Ple*be"ian\, n.
1. One of the plebs, or common people of ancient Rome, in
distinction from patrician.
[1913 Webster]
2. One of the common people, or lower rank of men.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
plebeian
adj 1: of the common people of ancient Rome; "a plebeian
magistrate" [ant: proletarian, patrician]
2: of or associated with the great masses of people; "the
common people in those days suffered greatly"; "behavior
that branded him as common"; "his square plebeian nose";
"a vulgar and objectionable person"; "the unwashed masses"
[syn: common, vulgar, unwashed]
n : one of the common people [syn: pleb]
WordNet (r) 2.0
61 Moby Thesaurus words for "plebeian":
Babbittish, Cockney, Everyman, John Smith, Philistine, average man,
base, baseborn, below the salt, bourgeois, brutish, campy, coarse,
cockney, common, common man, commoner, commonplace, crass, gauche,
general, high-camp, homely, homespun, humble, ignoble, inferior,
kitschy, little fellow, little man, low, low-camp, low-class,
lowborn, lowbred, lowbrow, lowly, mean, nonclerical, ordinary,
plain, pleb, pop, popular, proletarian, provincial, public,
roturier, rude, rustic, shabby-genteel, third-estate, uncouth,
undistinguished, ungenteel, unpolished, unrefined, unwashed,
vernacular, vulgar, working-class
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
PLEBEIAN. One who is classed among the common people, as distinguished from
the nobles. Happily in this country the order of nobles does not exist.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained
nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a
saturated solution.
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993)
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