Most of the Terms for General Criminal Originally Meant "Low-Born Person" or "Servant"

What a giveaway.

I'm putting this up as a quasi-open thread because you know at any moment Air DeathSantis Flight 666 is going to land. So this is a Sacrificial Post.

knave. late Old English cnafa "boy, male child; male servant," from Proto-Germanic *knabon- (source also of Old High German knabo "boy, youth, servant," German knabe "boy, lad"); it is also probably related to Old English cnapa "boy, youth, servant," Old Norse knapi "servant boy," Dutch knaap "a youth, servant," Middle High German knappe "a young squire," German Knappe "squire, shield-bearer." Original sense unknown; Klein suggests the prehistoric meaning might have been "stick, piece of wood." For pronunciation, see kn-.

Sense of "rogue, rascal" is first recorded c. 1200, presumably via sense evolution from "a menial" to "one of low birth," and the low character supposed to be characteristic of such a condition.

rascal. mid-14c., rascaile "people of the lowest class, the general mass; rabble or foot-soldiers of an army" (senses now obsolete), also singular, "low, tricky, dishonest person," from Old French rascaille "rabble, mob" (12c., Modern French racaille), as Cotgrave's French-English Dictionary (1611) defines it: "the rascality or base and rascall sort, the scumme, dregs, offals, outcasts, of any company."

rogue. 1560s, "idle vagrant, sturdy beggar, one of the vagabond class," a word of shadowy origin, perhaps a shortened form of roger (with a hard -g-), thieves' slang for a begging vagabond who pretends to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge, which is perhaps an agent noun in English from Latin rogare "to ask."

villain. c. 1300 (late 12c. as a surname), "base or low-born rustic," from Anglo-French and Old French vilain "peasant, farmer, commoner, churl, yokel" (12c.), from Medieval Latin villanus "farmhand," from Latin villa "country house, farm" (from PIE root *weik- (1) "clan"). Meaning "character in a novel, play, etc. whose evil motives or actions help drive the plot" is from 1822.

The most important phases of the sense development of this word may be summed up as follows: 'inhabitant of a farm; peasant; churl, boor; clown; miser; knave, scoundrel.' Today both Fr. vilain and Eng. villain are used only in a pejorative sense. [Klein]

There's a French surname, BonVillein, which just means "Good Farmer." But villein came to mean villain, because you just can't trust those dirty rustics.

cad. 1730, shortening of cadet (q.v.); originally used of servants, then (1831) of town boys by students at Oxford and English public schools (though at Cambridge it meant "snob"), then "townsman" generally. Compare caddie. Meaning "person lacking in finer feelings" is from 1838.

A cad used to be a jumped-up member of the lower classes who was guilty of behaving as if he didn't know that his lowly origin made him unfit for having sexual relationships with well-bred women. [Anthony West, "H.G. Wells: Aspects of a Life," 1984]

Now that is a complete giveaway.

I think it's interesting how long this game of the elites dehumanizing the commoners has been played, no?

One more: Marcus T proposes "bounder," more of a British word, but, you know, they did say it on Seinfeld.

bounder (n.) 1560s, "one who sets bounds," agent noun from bound (v.1); British English slang meaning "person of objectionable social behavior, would-be stylish person," is from 1882, perhaps from bound (v.2) on notion of one trying to "bound" into high society, but earliest usage suggests one outside the "bounds" of acceptable socializing, which would connect it with bound (n.1).

Seems like that's a debatable one. It's a similar idea to the insult "jumped-up" -- that you've jumped up above your station.

Also, the term adventurer used to be insult, when it meant a social adventurer, not someone who mucks about in tombs or dark continents. An "adventurer" or "adventuress" is one who is from a low station, but who can fake an accept and some manners, and attempts to pass himself or herself as from a "respectable" class, usually to marry someone of a higher class, or swindle someone from a higher class. (Or both.)

posted by Ace at 02:19 PM

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