Plebeian

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Dr. Goodword
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Plebeian

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:51 pm

• plebeian •


Pronunciation: plê-bee-ên • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Of or related to the commoners of ancient Rome. 2. Of or related to the lower social class. 3. Common, ordinary, plain, lacking refinement.

Notes: Today's adjective may be used as a noun referring to a member of the plebeian class. You might want to use the root of this word, pleb, in the same service. A plebe, back-formed from plebeian, is a freshman at a military academy. Look out for all the vowels in this word, especially the E between the root and the suffix -ian.

In Play: There is a lovely however improbable rhyme in the 1953 Arthur Hamilton song "Cry me a River" that goes like this:

You told me love was too plebeian
Told me you were through with me an'
Now you say you love me . . .


The song was offered to Peggy King, but Columbia Records objected to the word plebeian in the lyric. American plebeians now can climb to dizzying social heights: "These days politicians brag about their plebeian origins."

Word History: Today's Good Word was taken from Latin plebeius "belonging to the plebs, originally plebes "the populace, the masses", as opposed to the fewer patricians. Latin inherited this word from PIE ple-, the metathesized and suffixed form of PIE pelê-/polê- "to fill", source also of Russian polnyi and English fill. Yiddish gefilte, as in 'gefilte fish', was borrowed from German gefüllte "filled", past participle of füllen "to fill, stuff", from the same source. In Latin it also emerged as plenus "full, abundant, crowded", the ultimate source of English plenty. English folk and German Folk "common people" descended from the same PIE word via the Germanic ancestors of these two languages.
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Slava
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Re: Plebeian

Postby Slava » Mon Aug 30, 2021 7:20 am

When I come across this one in print, I know what it means. My problem is, I can't seem to get myself to put the stress on the second syllable, not the first. I expect that's because of the pronunciation of plebe.
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Re: Plebeian

Postby David Myer » Fri Sep 03, 2021 3:19 am

Easily and perhaps reasonably confused with the Greek equivalent hoi polloi. Sometimes rather crudely (and certainly rudely) referred to by snobbish types as 'the great unwashed'.

Philip Hudson
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Re: Plebeian

Postby Philip Hudson » Fri Sep 10, 2021 12:12 am

It seems there are two songs named Cry me a River.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hPii_RVHE Cry me a river
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksSPZTZES0 Cry me a river
Neither are very good songs in my estimate but the first one is head and shoulders above the second one.
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