Careful Words

peasant (n.)

Fairy elves,

Whose midnight revels by a forest side

Or fountain some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon

Sits arbitress.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 781.

  The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.