Villain
Originally this very rich term had a class-bound sense, deriving partly from its origin in Latin villanus , “a servant at a villa,” and partly from its proximity to the cognate term villein , “one of the lowest serfs in the Feudal System.” Hence the opening of the Oxford English Dicstionary ‘s rather class-bound definition: “Originally, a low-born, base-minded rustic; a man of ignoble ideas and instincts; in later use, an unprincipled and depraved scoundrel.” The term is a classic instance of C.S. Lewis’s brilliant semantic formulation “the moralization of status words” (1960, 21), the process whereby words originally designating low status acquire negative moral senses, and vice versa. Some of the earliest instances are examples of opprobrious address: “Goddys treytour, and ry3t vyleyn!” (“God’s traitor, and real villain!”) (1303, from Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne , l. 11,557). Chaucer uses the term extensively some thirty times, often in the phrase “to do a vileynie,” while in Shakespeare’s works it is by far the most common noun of insult, with nearly three hundred instances, famously in Hamlet’s execration of Claudius as a “damned smiling villain” and “treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!” (I v 106; II ii 617). Such uses extend through to the nineteenth century, the last quotation in the OED being from Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho! (1855). Since then the personal usage has become obsolete, even in literature.
An early sign of weakening occurs in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1601), when the libertine Sir Toby Belch says of Maria: “Here comes the little villain” (II v 16). However, in tragic contexts the serious use is still obvious and frequent. The current literary use, as in “the villain of the piece,” dates from the early nineteenth century and is still current. Interestingly, in much detective and thriller fiction the villain often turns out to be upper class, seldom “a low-born, base-minded rustic.” In recent decades the term has made a minor resurgence, but in slightly coy and self-conscious fashion, such as “We went in search of the villains” or “Beneath his charming exterior, Smith is a bit of a villain.” But the old strong personal sense, as in “You damned villain!” has long passed away. The word has never really taken root outside British English.
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