villain

The archetype villain gained its current meaning in the early 1800s. Its origins were more humble, another of the many words borrowed from Norman French in the 1200s. Back then, both French and English vilain meant “peasant” or “farmer”, from Medieval Latin vīllānus, meaning “farmer”, derived from classical Latin vīlla, meaning “country house”. Other words descended from vīlla through other routes include vicinity and village.

By 1400, villain had picked up a more pejorative sense of “hick” or “yokel” while still meaning “peon” or “serf”. By 1600, the derogatory sense had fully taken over and the meaning was more like “scoundrel”. The archetypal antagonist meaning only started showing up well after 1800. Incredibly, the same semantic drift also happened in French, where vilain now also means “villain”.

One marker of American cultural hegemony is how many languages have in turn taken villain in as a loanword, such as Japanese ヴィラン (viran), Korean 빌런 (billeon), and Tamil வில்லன் (villaṉ), each also meaning “villain”.