Word.ws English Dictionary

pleb

/plɛb/

pleb noun: a commoner; a member of the lower class of a society.

Noun

pleb (plural plebs)

  1. A commoner; a member of the lower class of a society.
  2. (derogatory) A common person; an unsophisticated or cultureless person.
    • You're under my roof, you pleb.1795, John O'Keeffe, Life's Vagaries, act V, scene ii, line 85
  3. (US, derogatory, slang, usually) A freshman cadet at a military academy.
    • I found some of the novices, plebs they are called, home-sick, and weary with their discipline.1838, Caroline H. Gilman, The Poetry of Travelling in the United States..., page 76
    • At Annapolis, the natives are crabs, the freshmen plebs, the sophomores youngsters.1922, Dialect Notes, number 5, American Dialect Society, page 189

Adjective

pleb (not comparable)

  1. Of or concerning the lower class of a society.
  2. (derogatory) Undistinguished, commonplace, unsophisticated, vulgar, coarse.

pleb meaning in Persian and Thai

pleb in Persian

common person
عامی 'âmmi

pleb in Thai

common person
ไพร่ prâi

Synonyms of pleb

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of pleb

Forms of pleb

pluralplebs

Origin of pleb

A clipping of plebeian and plebe, sometimes also understood as a back-formation from plebs.

Words formed from pleb

Words that rhyme with pleb

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about pleb

What does pleb mean?
Pleb means a commoner; a member of the lower class of a society.
What is pleb in Persian?
Pleb in Persian is عامی ('âmmi). See Pleb meaning in Persian.
What part of speech is pleb?
Pleb can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce pleb?
Pleb is pronounced /plɛb/.
What is the plural of pleb?
The plural of pleb is plebs.

Words near pleb in the dictionary

  1. pleatless
  2. pleatlessness
  3. pleatlike
  4. pleats
  5. pleaty
  6. pleb
  7. plebanate
  8. plebanates
  9. plebbier
  10. plebbiest
  11. Plebbit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pleb (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pleb.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pleb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pleb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.