A citizen or townsperson, especially in historical or dialectal usage; sometimes used contemptuously to refer to a merchant or tradesperson.
Shortened form of citizen, from Old French citeeyn and Latin civitas (city/state). The abbreviation became especially common in 17th-18th century England, sometimes with derogatory implications.
In old English literature, when someone dismissively calls another person a 'cit,' they're revealing class snobbery—it was used by aristocrats to mock merchants and city-dwellers as somehow less refined than country gentry.
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