pleb
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English
Etymology
A clipping of plebeian and plebe, sometimes also understood as a back-formation from plebs.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /plɛb/
Audio (General Australian): (file) - Rhymes: -ɛb
Noun
pleb (plural plebs)
- A commoner; a member of the lower class of a society.
- (derogatory) A common person; an unsophisticated or cultureless person.
- 1795, John O'Keeffe, Life's Vagaries, act V, scene ii, line 85:
- You're under my roof, you pleb.
- (US, slang, usually derogatory) A freshman cadet at a military academy.
- 1838, Caroline H. Gilman, The Poetry of Travelling in the United States..., page 76:
- I found some of the novices, plebs they are called, home-sick, and weary with their discipline.
- 1922, Dialect Notes, number 5, American Dialect Society, page 189:
- At Annapolis, the natives are crabs, the freshmen plebs, the sophomores youngsters.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Related terms
Translations
common person
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Adjective
pleb (not comparable)
- Of or concerning the lower class of a society.
- (derogatory) Undistinguished, commonplace, unsophisticated, vulgar, coarse.
References
- “pleb, n. and adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2006.
