Peon

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The words peon (pronounced /¿pi¿.¿n/) and peonage are derived from the Spanish peón [pe¿on]. It has a range of meanings but its primary usage is to describe labourers with little control over their employment conditions. In its obsolete usage in Spain itself, the word denoted a person who travelled by foot rather than on a horse (caballero). It now means a chess pawn, or a trompo (a kind of rotating toy or top). In Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, especially those in Latin America, where the hacienda system kept laborers from leaving estates, peón has also a range of meanings related to unskilled or semi-skilled work or manual labour, whether referring to a low-status wage earner in a variety of rural and urban industries (especially a day labourer or a servant); a peasant; a bullfighter's assistant, or, historically, someone subject to forms of unfree labour.

Pagina's: 96, Paperback, Betascript Publishers