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prettygoodwordpaisano (peye-SAH-noh) - n., a peasant, one's fellow countryman; a native Californian of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry; (U.S. Southwest) a road-runner.
That last makes me blink, as I've lived in the Southwest for 25 years and never heard it called either that nor chaparral-cock, which is given as another synonym in some dictionaries. But there's enough citations for it from the start of the 20th century that I have to believe it. Regardless, the word itself is an Americanism, adopted in the 1830s from Spanish, in turn adopted from French paysan, a peasant, from Old French païsan, one who resides in the countryside, from païs, countryside, from Latin pāgus, country.
---L.
That last makes me blink, as I've lived in the Southwest for 25 years and never heard it called either that nor chaparral-cock, which is given as another synonym in some dictionaries. But there's enough citations for it from the start of the 20th century that I have to believe it. Regardless, the word itself is an Americanism, adopted in the 1830s from Spanish, in turn adopted from French paysan, a peasant, from Old French païsan, one who resides in the countryside, from païs, countryside, from Latin pāgus, country.
---L.
