Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.
- a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.
- villein.
noun
- a wicked or malevolent person
- (in a novel, play, film, etc) the main evil character and antagonist to the hero
- often jocular a mischievous person; rogue
- British police slang a criminal
- history a variant spelling of villein
- obsolete an uncouth person; boor
c.1300, “base or low-born rustic,” from Anglo-French and Old French villain, from Medieval Latin villanus “farmhand,” from Latin villa “country house” (see villa).
The most important phases of the sense development of this word may be summed up as follows: ‘inhabitant of a farm; peasant; churl, boor; clown; miser; knave, scoundrel.’ Today both Fr. vilain and Eng. villain are used only in a pejorative sense. [Klein]
Meaning “character in a novel, play, etc. whose evil motives or actions help drive the plot” is from 1822.