a member of a class of partially free persons under the feudal system, who were serfs with respect to their lord but had the rights and privileges of freemen with respect to others.
Something said to be the cause of particular trouble or an evil: poverty, the villain in the increase of crime.
Obsolete A peasant regarded as vile and brutish.
[Middle English vilein, feudal serf, person of coarse feelings, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *vīllānus, feudal serf, from Latin vīlla, country house; see weik-1 in Indo-European roots.]
vil·lein also vil·lain (vĭl'ən, -ān', vĭ-lān') n. One of a class of feudal serfs who held the legal status of freemen in their dealings with all people except their lord.
[vil-uh
n] 