Meaning & use
Canaille
Last updated
The common masses regarded with contempt; a rabble or mob, especially as viewed by the socially privileged.
See it in a sentence
The aristocrat sneered at what he called the canaille gathering outside the palace gates.
Revolutionary pamphlets mocked the old elite's fear of the canaille.
A note on using this word
Borrowed directly from French, "canaille" is related distantly to "canine" through the Latin "canis" (dog), originally implying a disparaged "pack" of common people.
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