Dictionary

canaille en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• kə-nī􂀽'
• /kəˈnaɪ/
• /kəˈneɪl/
• kə-nāl􂀽'

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱwṓder. Latin canēs Latin canisder. Vulgar Latin *canālia Italian canagliabor. Middle French canaillebor. English canaille Borrowed from Middle French canaille.

Meanings

1. (collective, countable) The lowest class of people; the rabble; the vulgar.
   • The President's Cup, for all its high-sounding name, was one of the lowliest and most humble trophies offered for competition to the members of our club... It had been instituted by a kindly committee for the benefit of the canaille of our little golfing world, those retired military, naval and business men who withdraw to the country and take up golf in their fifties. 1937, P. G. Wodehouse, Lord Emsworth and Others, Woodstock: Overlook, published 2002, pages 99–100:
   • … whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the peerage of words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; … 1865, John Ruskin, "Of Kings' Treasuries", Unto This Last and Other Writings, Penguin: New York (1997), p. 262
   • I was on a rampart watching the enemy pitch their camp; and, seeing the crowd of idlers round the stream, I asked M. du Pont, commissary of the artillery, to send one cannon-shot among this canaille: he gave me a flat refusal, saying that all this sort of people was not worth the powder would be wasted on them. 1553, Ambroise Paré, “The Journey to Hesdin”, in Journeys In Diverse Places:
2. (Canada, uncountable) Shorts or inferior flour.

Forms

Synonyms

rabble · peasantry · hoi polloi · working class · proletariat · canaille · multitude · unwashed · commonalty · lower class · third estate · plebs · masses · populace · general public · herd · great unwashed · riffraff · rank and file · many · great unhosed · mob · everyone · demos · commonality · unwashed masses · odds and sods · trash · commonage · crowd