All 5 Uses

peasant
in
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
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Apart from the cosmetics required by her performances the only treatment Camila Perichole afforded her face was to throw cold water at it twice a day, like a peasant woman at a horse trough.†
Chpt 2
There was an etiquette of propitiation which generations of peasant women had found comforting.†
Chpt 2 *
In repose one was startled to discover that the nose was long and thin, the mouth tired and a little childish, the eyes unsatisfied—a rather pinched peasant girl, dragged from the cafes-chantants and quite incapable of establishing any harmony between the claims of her art, of her appetites, of her dreams, and of her crowded daily routine.†
Chpt 4
When the pestilence visited his dear village of Puerto and carried off a large number of peasants, he secretly drew up a diagram of the characteristics of fifteen victims and fifteen survivors, the statistics of their value sub specie aeternitatis.†
Chpt 5

peasants = used historically or possibly in relation to a very poor country: people of low income, education, and social standing -- especially those who raise crops or livestock
From all this saddening data Brother Juniper contrived an index for each peasant.†
Chpt 5

Definitions:

(1) (peasant)
used historically or possibly in relation to a very poor country: a person of low income, education, and social standing -- especially one who raises crops or livestock
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)