The common people or lower classes, especially when considered as disreputable or worthless.
From French canaille, derived from Italian canaglia, which comes from Latin canis meaning 'dog.' The term originally referred to a pack of dogs and was metaphorically applied to common people, with a derogatory connotation that evolved over time.
This word reveals how languages preserve social prejudice—calling ordinary people 'dogs' was so common in 17th-century French aristocratic speech that it became the standard word for the working class. It's a linguistic fossil of class contempt.
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