A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally works land owned or rented by/from a noble, with regards to the era. The peasant was bound to the land and could not move or change their occupation unless they became a yeoman (free person), which generally happened by buying their freedom. The peasant also generally had to give most of their crops to the nobles.

The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.

Peasants typically make up the majority of the agricultural labour-force in a pre-industrial society, dependent on the civilization of their land: without stockpiles of provisions they thrive or starve according to the most recent harvest. The majority of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants. (Pre-industrial societies have diminished with the advent of industrialization.)

Though "peasant" is a word of loose application, once a market economy has taken root the term peasant proprietors is frequently used to describe the traditional rural population in countries where smallholders farm much of the land. It is sometimes used by people who consider themselves of higher class, more precisely the second and first Estate - these were the Nobility and the Clergy and right at the top was the monarch. As slang to refer pejoratively to those of poorer education who come from a lower income background.