canaille

Noun

canaille (countable and uncountable, plural canailles)

1. (collective, countable) The lowest class of people; the rabble; the vulgar.
   • I was on a rampart watching the enemy pitch their camp; and, seeing the crowd of idlers round the stream, I asked M. du Pont, commissary of the artillery, to send one cannon-shot among this canaille: he gave me a flat refusal, saying that all this sort of people was not worth the powder would be...1553, Ambroise Paré, “The Journey to Hesdin”, in Journeys In Diverse Places
   • … whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the peerage of words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; …1865, John Ruskin, "Of Kings' Treasuries", Unto This Last and Other Writings, Penguin: New York (1997), p. 262

   Synonyms:

   commonality, commonalty, crowd, commonage, demos, everyone, general public, great unhosed, great unwashed, herd

2. (Canada, uncountable) Shorts or inferior flour.