plebs

From Latin plēbs (“the plebeian class”), variant of earlier plēbēs. Later also understood as the plural of pleb.

• IPA^(key): /plɛbz/

plebs

1. (historical) The plebeian class of ancient Rome.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, act IV, scene iv, line 92:

     Why I am going with my pidgeons to the tribunall Plebs.

2. The common people, especially (derogatory) the mob.
   • a. 1657, George Daniel, "The Author" in Poems, Vol. II, p. 131:

     For 'tis an Easier Thing
     To make Trees Leape, and Stones selfe-burthens bring
     (As once Amphion to the walls of Thæbes,)
     Then Stop the giddie Clamouring of Plebs...

   • 2000, James Fentress, chapter 1, in Rebels & Mafiosi: Death in a Sicilian Landscape:

     The history of Palermo was punctuated by such uprisings; when they happened, the great barons simply fled to the safety of their country villas, leaving the urban plebs free to sack their palaces in the city.

   • 2009, Erica Benner, chapter 8, in Machiavelli's Ethics:

     The lesser plebs are not unscrupulous troublemakers.

3. plural of pleb in its various senses.

Although the Latin plebs was usually declined as a singular group noun, English plebs is usually treated as grammatically plural in all its senses.

• (common people): the canaille, the common people, the great unwashed, the herd, the hoi polloi, the many, the masses, the multitude, the peasantry (rural), the proletariat (urban), the rabble, the rank-and-file, the riffraff, the working class, the mob

• plebeian, plebe, pleb

• “plebs, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2006.

plebs m

1. plebs, commoners

• plebej
• plebejec

• plebs in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• plebs in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

• plēbēs (archaic)

From Old Latin plēbēs, from Proto-Italic *plēðūs (whence Oscan 𐌐𐌋𐌝𐌚𐌓𐌉𐌊𐌔 (plífriks, “plebeian”, nom. sg.) via *plēðros), from Proto-Indo-European *pléh₁dʰuh₁ (whence Ancient Greek πληθῡ́ς (plēthū́s, “crowd”)) from *pleh₁- (“fill”), whence pleō. See also populus.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /pleːps/, [pɫeːps]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /pleps/

plēbs f (genitive plēbis); third declension

1. (countable and uncountable) plebeians, common people

Third declension i-stem.

Medieval Latin:
Third declension.

• plēbēcula/ plēbicula
• plēbēius
• plēbicola
• plēbiscītum
• plēbitās

• plebs in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• plebs in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• plebs in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• plebs in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • one of the people: homo plebeius, de plebe
    
  • to get oneself admitted as a plebeian: traduci ad plebem (Att. 1. 18. 4)
    
  • to transfer oneself from the patrician to the plebeian order: transitio ad plebem (Brut. 16. 62)
    
  • to transfer oneself from the patrician to the plebeian order: traductio ad plebem
    
  • to stir up the lower classes: plebem concitare, sollicitare
    
  • to hold the people in one's power, in check: plebem continere
    
  • (ambiguous) the dregs of the people: faex populi, plebis, civitatis
    
  • (ambiguous) a demagogue, agitator: plebis dux, vulgi turbator, civis turbulentus, civis rerum novarum cupidus
    
  • (ambiguous) the plebeian tribunes, whose persons are inviolable: tribuni plebis sacrosancti (Liv. 3. 19. 10)
    
  • (ambiguous) to appeal to the plebeian tribunes against a praetor's decision: appellare tribunos plebis (in aliqua re a praetore) (Liv. 2. 55)
    
• plebs in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers