Heroes fight them in movies and comic books. They sometimes wear elaborate costumes and have lengthy monologues about how they’re going to take over the world. I’m talking, of course, about villains, the singular form of which is our word of the week. I must thank Matthew Jackson for suggesting it.

The “villain of the piece” — the stereotypical “bad guy” — is perhaps the word’s best-known meaning, but it originally referred to “a low-born, base-minded rustic,” or “a man of ignoble ideas or instincts,” and only later on, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, did it refer to someone inclined to do bad things, also known as a criminal.

The word’s origins can be traced to the Middle English word vilein, a feudal serf or peasant, hence the other common historical spelling of villain, villein. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, both these words come from the Old French and thence from the vulgar Latin word vīllānus, also referring to a feudal serf, which comes from the Latin vīlla, or country house, on the grounds of which Roman slaves would work.

As a side note, “vulgar” means “of the people” (from the Latin vulgus), and so “vulgar Latin” was the Latin spoken, and not written, by the ordinary people of the Roman Empire, and the granddaddy of our modern Romance languages.

The first recorded written use of villain in English in its original meaning came in 1303, in Handlyng Synne, a devotional poetic work by Robert Manning (or Mannyng) of Brunne (c. 1275-1338), a British monk and historian of the Gilbertine Order.

Manning’s poetry deals with the concept of sin through stories, the most famous of which is “The Dancers of Colbeck.” This happy little tale is about a group of irreverent churchyard revelers. The local priest tells the bunch, which includes his daughter, to stop dancing.

They don’t, and so the priest condemns them to dance for a whole year without stopping. They proceed to have a year-long dance party, at the end of which the priest’s daughter dies. While not especially cheery, such stories illustrated Manning’s entertaining narrative gifts. The line in question is, “Goddys treytour, and … vyleyn! Hast bou no mynde of Marye Maudeleyn …” (sic).

An illustration of villain’s transition from “peasant” to “bad guy” can be found in several works by Shakespeare, starting in the early 1590s with The Comedy of Errors. Though the word is found throughout the play, a good illustration can be found in act V, scene I, line 29, “Thou art a Villaine to impeach me thus, Ile proue mine honor, and mine honestie Against thee presently, if thou dar’st stand …” (sic; Antipholus of Syracuse is about to defend his honor in the climactically funny final scene).

Finally, although villain is a serious word, it does have its silly side, and has been applied as a sort of playful title when used in partial or full jest, as we’ve just noted above. But a good modern example of this can also be seen in 1815 in Sir Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering; or the Astrologer, with the line, “‘Jock, ye villain,’ exclaimed the voice from the interior, ‘are ye lying routing there, and a young gentleman seeking the way to the Place?”(sic). Scott (1771–1832) is, of course, the author and poet of Ivanhoe and Waverley acclaim, and the master of the British historical novel.

So the next time you see a base-minded, knavish rogue who might just be a criminal or a scoundrel (or varlet, for that matter), feel free to call him or her a villain in the full knowledge of what the word entails. Please feel free to also submit your word suggestions anduntil next time, cheerio!

[Reach columnist Will Mari at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]