This week’s theme
Words for people

This week’s words
quidam
rudesby
galoot
jobsworth
roturier

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(ro-TOOR-ee-ay, -uhr)

MEANING:

noun: A person of low rank; a commoner.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old French roture (newly cultivated land), from Latin rumpere (to break). Earliest documented use: 1586.

NOTES:

Old money has been looking down on new money, old land on new land, and old titles on new ones, since forever. Before the French Revolution rearranged the social furniture, a roturier was someone who held land by paying rent rather than by bloodline. It was considered a few rungs below the nobility who held feudal estates. The aristocrats broke bread; the roturiers broke soil. See also, plebeian.

USAGE:

“Propose to her, marry her. Her parents aren’t here any more to say you can’t because you’re a roturier.”
Peter De Polnay; The Loser; W.H. Allen; 1973.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: