Just discovered an interesting word origin and chain of associations, purely by accident. The word “villain” originally (c. 1303) meant: “base or low-born rustic.”

And it came by way of the Latin word “villa” meaning “country house, farm.” Also, in Middle English, a villein or vilein was: “One of a class of feudal serfs who held the legal status of freemen in their dealings with all people except their lord.”

And these all go back to the Indo-European root “weik-” which actually means “Clan (social unit above the household)”. Other words that come from this same root:

1. Village
2. Vicinity
3. Diocese
4. Economy
5. Ecology
6. Parish
7. Ecumenical

Even the word “nasty” comes from a shortened form of villenastre, a variation of villein meaning “infamous, bad.” Our modern usage of villain comes to us as recently as 1822: “character in a novel, play, etc. whose evil motives or actions help drive the plot”

I’m tempted to read a social history into all this… something about the clan/extended family unit being progressively demonized over time until nowadays we have terms like “Super-Villain” to describe a archetype/caricature of modern evil. Very strange!