A person who is not of noble or royal birth; an ordinary person from the general population.
From Middle English 'commoner,' derived from 'common' (from Old French 'commun,' meaning shared or general) plus the agent suffix '-er.' The term emerged in medieval times to distinguish regular people from nobility.
During the Middle Ages, commoners were legally considered so different from nobility that they were almost seen as different types of people—they even had separate laws and courts! This word shows how dramatically social class has shifted over time.
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