Definition of "canaille" []

• The masses of the people; the proletariat. (noun)
• Rabble; riffraff. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The emperor has written the word canaille—“vile creature”—in the margin here."
• "As for our ministry and the intendants of the provinces, the financiers and what may be called the canaille, they felt all the extent of their loss."
• "The Count caught the popular contagion, and after exchanging tears and kisses with patriots whom a week before he had called canaille, he swore eternal fidelity to the"